The Will of Embers
by Arcane Aegis
Summary: What if Orochimaru's plan to take over Konoha was a little more rational? After losing the village of his birth, Naruto strikes out on a mission to gain power and take revenge for everything he's ever held dear. But the Five Nations hold many secrets, and one man can't fight a war... can he? puppeteer!Naruto.
1. Wind Shadow

**Chapter 1: Wind Shadow**

* * *

Orochimaru liked the climate of Suna. The desert was a warm, dry place; perfect for cold-blooded reptiles to sun themselves. He was human, mostly, but the traits of his preferred animal had begun to rub off on him. Perhaps when he was done, he would retire here. Just build a nice little hermit hut out in the desert and spend his days playing cards and trying to use senjutsu.

The idea made him giggle, though the sound escaped as a sort of 'Fufufu'. _Him_, living out in the wilderness like a more primal version of Jiraiya? His erstwhile teammate may have had no taste, but even the legendary pervert wasn't homeless. Yet.

To make things worse, his left hand was acting up again. He eyed the limb suspiciously, like it would bite him with sharingan-tinted fangs if he stopped paying attention. Orochimaru cursed Itachi, cursed his hand and cursed Akatsuki. If he hadn't needed to leave the organization, he wouldn't have had to fight Sasori, Kisame and Itachi at once. Deidara was there, but despite his dislike for the sannin and penchant for blowing things up, he'd been asleep for the fight. Oh, well, everybody had idiosyncrasies. If you were an S-class rogue ninja, they simply happened to be more silly or dangerous. Usually both.

Nevertheless, after telling several of the world's greatest criminals (and Konan) to piss off, he was doing better than ever. Otogakure was a resounding success, and now it was time for stage two of his plans. Stage two, which involved a plot specifically contrived to rival the lunatic complexity of Pain's gather-the-jinchūriki-and-suck-out-the-bijū plan to end all conflict. Sometimes, Orochimaru wondered if the man was a bigger psychopath than himself. It seemed that in Akatsuki, the breadth of the individual's power scaled with how far out of their minds they were. Hidan, an immortal, worshiped a god of destruction and killed wantonly to satisfy himself. Sasori, who was arguably immortal, had destroyed an entire country in the far west just for the hell of it. Kakuzu, who was born in the era of warring states, lived only for money and seemed to not understand the concept of a greater power. And had a collection of human hearts sewed into his back. Pain fancied himself a god, and vowed to bring peace... with an invincible weapon. Orochimaru...

Huh. Maybe it was just immortality that did it.

He arrived at the front gates of Sunagakure, wearing a white traveller's cloak and magatama earrings. The chūnin on guard duty asked for identification and a reason for his visit, and he responded by cutting the man's head off with his index finger. It made a satisfying crackle, like a dish being shattered on the floor, and Orochimaru strode past the corpse with nothing on his mind but the sun on his pale face and world domination.

Suna was larger than Kiri and Iwa, but smaller than Kumo and Konoha. It had sided with Konoha in the Third Great Ninja War, and ties between the two city-states were stronger than ever. Sadly, as Orochimaru was well aware, Suna was becoming restless. Discontent in the village originated from a significant lack of employment in and around the Land of Wind, which was perfectly understandable. There was very little work to be done in the middle of the desert, and most of the outlying hamlets tended to subcontract to other hidden villages. Personally, Orochimaru thought that founding a village based on an economy of murder and intrigue in the centre of a vast desert was rather foolish, but maybe there was a reason. Perhaps it wasn't always a desert, or there was something attractive that had once brought commerce to the country. Whatever it was, it was long gone.

He arrived at the Kazekage's office, which was a massive, spherical building attached to Suna's great sandstone cliffs. The side of the dome bore the kanji for wind, and a gouge ran across the equator. It looked, in fact, like collateral damage from a fight with Shukaku. And they didn't even have the money to repair the most important building in the district? Orochimaru smiled unpleasantly. That was certainly part of the reason he was so well received in his initial proposal.

Nobody barred access to the office, and nobody commented on his appearance until he reached the Kazekage's secretary. The person behind the desk was none other than Nejiri, who was well above genin in skill but hadn't managed to get into a second chūnin exam after failing his first in Kumo. He looked up as he heard the sannin's deliberately audible approach, his expression turning from annoyance to shock to fear as he stared up at one of the most powerful ninja in the world.

"O-O-Orochimaru?" he squeaked, almost toppling backwards out of his chair at the sight of the fearsome man.

"I'd like an appointment to see the Kazekage," Orochimaru drawled, savouring the terrified Nejiri's attempts to placate him.

"W-We ha-have an o-opening in o-our schedule—"

"_Now_," insisted Orochimaru. "I'm sure the Kazekage will want to see me, sooner rather than later."

"Y-Y-Yes!" Nejiri squealed, vanishing from behind the desk in a shunshin made sloppy by fear. There was a commotion from behind the desk, as the people who were speaking with the Kazekage were ejected. Orochimaru picked his way unassumingly through the crowd of civilians, past the circular doorway into the office, and finally to the leader of Suna.

The Kazekage was a tall man with spiky red hair. He wore the traditional white and blue robes of his station, though his signature hat lay discarded on the floor. The exodus of civilians who'd had their audience cut short left a mess of papers lying on the floor and desk, haphazardly assembled into piles. The seat directly to his left, where Orochimaru vaguely recalled Biwako Sarutobi sitting, was empty. Beyond that sat Chiyo, an elder of Suna, and on the Kazekage's right was Baki.

Dark-rimmed eyes stared back at him. "Orochimaru," he said shortly. "I am... pleased to know that you've taken my advice to heart."

"Nobody enjoys conversing with clones," Orochimaru agreed. "Although, this conversation could be more private still."

The Kazekage snapped his fingers. "Baki, take Temari and Kankurō into the desert. Have them train in endurance for the upcoming chūnin exam. Chiyo, collect Gaara and ensure that he does not destroy my city while I am busy."

"Certainly," the elderly puppeteer agreed, walking out of the room. Baki left too, after some hesitation.

"Those are your best jōnin?" Orochimaru said mockingly. "For shame, Suna."

"Aside from those who are not in the village on assignment," the Kazekage grumbled, "they are indeed my best."

"Some advice, from one Kage to another," Orochimaru said pleasantly. "One's village tends to prosper when one does not kill one's best ninja for trivial reasons."

"Those were unavoidable!" the redhead roared.

Orochimaru coughed something that sounded like 'Pakura'.

The Kazekage took a calming breath and relaxed. "What do you need, Orochimaru?" he finally asked.

"I still have yet to gather my resources, which need not happen just yet, and the only element still missing is beyond your reach. After I obtain it, we will be prepared."

"Have you decided on a date?"

"I believe Konoha will be at its weakest during the public portion of the exam," Orochimaru proposed. "Excessive numbers of their ANBU will not be questioned, and we will be in a perfect position to surprise the vast majority of the chūnin and jōnin. I take it we will not be factoring in Leaf genin?"

"The ones who make it to that stage will be of at least chūnin level in fighting skill, but otherwise they are not a serious threat," the Kazekage agreed. "Are there any other things which I ought to be aware of?"

"Previously, we discussed using your gold dust ability as a distraction for the more powerful members of the Konoha military," Orochimaru said. "I believe that role could be better filled by your son, Gaara."

The Kazekage's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Oh? That seems like quite the risky endeavour for such an unexperienced shinobi, jinchūriki or no. Why should I send him off to die?"

Orochimaru coughed again. 'Yashamaru', he wheezed.

"Very well," the Kazekage allowed. "I take it I will be attacking a more secluded target?"

"Precisely. Your task is to kill Hiruzen Sarutobi."

"The Professor? That's quite the challenge, even for me. You know that, though, so I take it there is another purpose to it? Maybe ridding yourself of an ally who has outlived his usefulness?"

Orochimaru smiled grimly. "No, it is something I expect you to do with every chance of succeeding without a scratch. We'll simply cheat a bit, that's all."

"I like how you think!" the Kazekage laughed. "Is there anything else you wished to discuss?"

"One more item on the agenda," said Orochimaru. "You wished to replace some of your, eh, _weaker_ bloodlines with the sharingan and byakugan. Unless something happened while I wasn't looking, there is only one Uchiha remaining."

"Two, actually," the Kazekage interrupted.

_'Four, even, but that's not for you to know,'_ Orochimaru thought.

"Itachi Uchiha is not on the table, as I have neither the time nor the inclination to capture him for you. While I can grant you as many members of the Hyūga cadet branch as you please, Sasuke Uchiha will remain my property."

"I'll think of something," the Kazekage said agreeably.

"Shall we draw up a division?"

Together, Orochimaru and the Kazekage listed the various clans and assets of Konoha on a sheet of paper. Clan heads went at the top, followed by their heirs and the other members. On a different paper, they covered summoning scrolls and techniques, as well as the rough value of the Konoha treasury and the number of enlisted men in the shinobi corps.

"The techniques can simply be duplicated," the Kazekage mused, crossing it off the list. "We ought to split the clan heads and heirs, to make the division of technqiues roughly equal between Suna and Oto."

"I don't think leaving some of them alive would be wise," Orochimaru said. "For instance, Hiashi Hyūga may be amenable to the forthcoming policy changes, but the Akimichi, Yamanaka and Nara clans will fight to the death unless beheaded." He drew a line through the names Shikaku, Inoihci and Chōza.

"Interesting, as those clans use hidden techniques which are not encessarily unique to their members," the Kazekage mused. "What of the Sarutobi clan?"

"There are only three living shinobi in the main branch of the family," Orochimaru said. "My sensei is too dangerous to let live, as is his son. The brat can live, I suppose. They'll need an heir." Another pair of lines struck out Hiruzen and Asuma.

"That is everything pressing that I wished to cover," the Kazekage said. "Thank you for coming in person. I'll contact your spy at the start of the exams, and we'll marshall our forces. Oh, and please stop trying to scare Nejiri. He's one of my best genin, and it would greatly disappoint me if he were to die of fright."

Orochimaru stood up and nodded reluctantly. It wasn't as though he intended to return to the Hidden Sand any time soon. "I will see you shortly," he said, and promptly dissolved into a writhing mass of white snakes.

"Oh, you bastard," the Kazekage growled. A tidal wave of gold dust rose from behind the desk, wrapped around the pile of snakes and crushed.

**.:.**

Just outside the room, a small mechanical device was attached to the wall. It was a fist-sized spider, with one thin chakra thread leading to it from the outside. On its underside, a rudimentary listening device lay flush against the wall.

About a kilometre away, Chiyo nearly lost control of the puppet in shock. The Kazekage was going to do _what_?

* * *

**This is my take on a genre that I see sometimes: Naruto the puppeteer. There's a lot of buildup in this story, and it'll take a while to get to the stage where the action centres around Naruto. There might be a Naruto pairing in this story, possibly Hinata or another central character, but that won't be a major component of the story. There will, however, be plenty of side pairings. Hinata is listed as a main character because she is independently an important protagonist, as are a few others.**

**This story builds rather slowly, and the action doesn't centre on Naruto for a couple of chapters. If you can wait that, enjoy!**


	2. The 'Package'

**Chapter 2: The 'Package'**

* * *

Chiyo excused herself from the bi-weekly bridge tournament with Ebizō and the other elders in a rage. She placated Gaara with a judicious dose of sedative, and then stormed out into the desert. The ramifications of what she'd heard were enormous, and she needed time to sort them out.

Suna had faced off against Konoha in the Second Great Ninja War, the war in which she'd come to fame. The Second War held a place in history as the most bloody, violent conflict perpetrated in human memory, the Third being tame in comparison. All five villages had been out for themselves, and alliances were short-lived and treacherous at best. This was the war in which Hanzō had defeated Hiruzen Sarutobi's genin team and dubbed them the Three Legendary Ninja, and the war in which Sakumo Hatake had come to be known as the White Fang. Very few still remembered it, as the fourth generation of Kage had been very young at the time, but Chiyo remembered perfectly. So too did Orochimaru, and why the man seemed intent on plunging the world into turmoil again was beyond her. The political climate was perfect for such an event, what with Konoha's declining strength, the growing boldness of Kumo and Kiri's recent 'policy changes'. Perhaps the rumours were true, and the snake sannin had gone mad, but she doubted this was the whim of a madman.

The Fourth Kazekage was a fool, then. Whatever Orochimaru had promised him, it couldn't be worth sacrificing hundreds of Suna ninja in a fruitless assault against the much more powerful Konoha. The motives for the plan were simple enough: conquest and spoils. What Chiyo didn't understand was how they intended to surmount superior forces and being outnumbered roughly six to one. Was Orochimaru leading Suna to its doom? Could he justify this to himself, somehow?

Or did he actually stand a chance against the might of Konohagakure?

Whatever the case, this insanity could not be allowed to come to fruition. Whether she needed to stop it by alerting the population of Suna, warning Konoha or outright enacting a coup to usurp the uncaring, oblivious Kazekage, she would do it.

Chiyo crested another sand dune at a run, allowing the pleasant brown swell of Suna to fade On the horizon. Already, she calculated the potential strengths of the two sides in the fight. Konoha's shinobi were six times more numerous than their own, befitting the village's size, and many of them were, on average, better than the Suna ninja of equivalent rank. Konoha had Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzō Shimura, both of whom were an army unto themselves if you included Root. Jiraiya, too, was aeons ahead of any Sand jōnin. That is, if he was even in Konoha at the time of the invasion. The same went for Tsunade, who was usually on the road in southeastern Fire Country.

The gears in the puppeteer's head were spinning now. Two of Konoha's S-ranked ninja were unlikely to come to the aid of their village, and as much as she hated to admit it, Sarutobi was unlikely to best Orochimaru in a fight, especially if Orochimaru had the element of surprise. Chiyo knew little of the jinchūriki successor to Kushina, but whoever it was, they kept a low profile. That meant one of two things: the boy (or girl) was a classified state secret, or they had no control over the Kyūbi at all. Either way, Gaara and the Kazekage would likely overwhelm them, though the second was especially troubling.

This was very, _very_ bad. Orochimaru might not've been rational, but he was no fool. He probably had his own military to bring to the fight, along with spies on the inside and the benefit of being a tactical genius in his own right. If Konoha was truly caught unawares, their chances of fending off an invasion were close to nonexistent.

She knew what she had to do, then. Sighing, Chiyo turned around to go back to Suna. She would buy some rations, pack up her collection of Chikamatsu puppets and warn the Leaf of the impending invasion. If Sakumo were still alive, he'd probably laugh himself to death at the irony.

Well, at least the Slug Girl was out of the village, drinking herself to death and squandering her family fortune. Otherwise, she'd never let her live it down, even if Chiyo ended up saving her village and preventing a fourth war.

"Excuse me, madam, but are you Chiyo?"

Surprised as she was, Chiyo forced herself not to turn around at the sound of the voice in the middle of nowhere. "That's a common name here in Wind Country," she answered vaguely.

"Let me rephrase that: are you Chiyo, the founder of the Puppet Brigade and heir to Monzaemon Chikamatsu?"

"Do I know you?" she said blithely, her voice crackling with age.

"Turn around, Honoured Elder," said the voice, which had gained a suave quality. Despite recognizing it as a genjutsu for making the listener more compliant, Chiyo nevertheless turned around to face the bold ninja who dared to confront her.

He was young, almost absurdly so, with dark hair and black eyes. He wore a black cloak studded with red clouds, one sleeve empty as he rested his arm in the crook of his robe. Chiyo stared at him for a moment, real fear burgeoning in her chest.

"You know," said Itachi Uchiha. His voice was bland again, and the statement was both simple and a terrifyingly accurate summation of her situation. "What will you do, Elder?"

"I fail to see how that is your concern," Chiyo responded crisply. "Have you any legitimate business with me, traitor?"

"My partner is currently... indisposed," Itachi said in his careful monotone. "This is not Akatsuki business, however, it is personal, and so I do not need him for this encounter. Return to your village, and forget what you've heard. Do not report my presence to the Kazekage. If you attempt to warn Konoha, it will end badly. Above all, do not interfere. Orochimaru must succeed."

"You cannot expect me to do that," Chiyo raged, covertly reaching into her robes for a sealing scroll.

Itachi sighed, as if he'd genuinely expected her to simply ignore the catastrophe about to happen. "One last chance, Elder Chiyo. Please, be reasonable."

Chiyo's response was a well-timed barrage of senbon. As Itachi fell back, deflecting the hail of needles with a fūton jutsu, she unsealed the puppets. The Mother and Father duo, created by her grandson in a moment of weakness, were more than sentimental relics to her. She'd put all of her considerable skill into making them weapons of destruction, and they nearly rivalled the power of the White Secret collection.

Itachi was not unprepared, and with blinding speed he summoned a crow to his shoulder. The bird cawed uneasily at the tension, while Chiyo arranged Mother and Father in front of her. Funny, shouldn't they be Son and Daughter-In-Law? She shook her head, averting her eyes from Itachi's.

"It seems I cannot entrap you that way," Itachi commented, his tone still flat. "I had heard that you have... experience... in killing Uchiha. As it happens, I do as well."

Was that a _joke_? Chiyo stared dumbly at the prodigy, and then Itachi struck. He lashed out with a barrage of shuriken, the channeled chakra in the ninja stars easily destroying her chakra threads and severing her connection to Son and Daughter-In-Law. The crow flew from his shoulder, but Chiyo ignored it in favour of defending herself from Itachi's long-range attacks.

That was her mistake.

The crow flicked its head to the other side, and when Chiyo looked at it, the red of a sharingan stared back at her. Paralyzed, she stopped trying to regain control of her puppets. The last thing she heard was Itachi's voice, seemingly from far away.

"_Kotoamatsukami_."

**.:.**

The ocean was bright, sparkling with the diffused light of the sun. Kabuto looked out over the water from the dock, and concluded that death by drowning was a sufficiently painful method to execute Danzō with. The dying sailors had provided a delightful alternative to screaming, a sort of pained gurgling complete with the hand movements and tortured expressions. There wasn't any blood splatter, though all the splashing made up for it. Smiling sunnily, Kabuto turned away from the massacre he'd just perpetrated and walked further down the deserted dock.

This was an empty port city on the southern shore of Hot Spring Country. It was mostly abandoned, having been born to do trade with the bustling island of Uzu. Now the Whirlpool was destroyed, and the harbour had dried up. Kabuto spared a moment to admire the city of Uzushiogakure, parts of which were still visible on the coast of the island. Although they gleamed in the sunlight, the truth was that beyond the treeline, Uzu was a burnt husk of a village. Only ashes and rubbled remained of the long-lived Uzumaki.

There was a different island here, other than Wave Country. Kabuto had chartered the boat to the Land of Hot Springs from that very island, paying for the boat up front in solid gold. On the way north, unfortunately, he completely forgot which island he was looking for, and so he simply had them pull ashore at the first abandoned seaside locale. Now, the gold weighed heavy in his pocket, and he wished he'd asked the men to pull up to Uzu. There were some graves up there he wanted to spit on, and possibly dig up for traces of DNA.

At his feet, the water lapped against the wooden poles holding the pier out of the water. Kabuto sighed and sat down, waiting for the last of the sailors to succumb to the water in their lungs and his guests to arrive.

It didn't take long. A few minutes later, a dark shape swam into Kabuto's line of sight, coming to a stop just in front of the dock. With a torrential splash, a green figure burst from the sea, splashing down on dry ground right next to him. As soon as the water washed away, Kabuto was pleased to see that his contact had arrived. Short in stature, wearing a blue swimsuit and covered entirely in reptilian scales, Isaribi was an intimidating sea demon. That is, until she transformed back into a regular girl. Somehow, a girl with admittedly genin level ninja skills didn't quite inspire the fear that Amachi's greatest creation did.

"Yakushi," the girl said absently, pulling a roll of bandages out of a pocket on her swimsuit. "The moon is full tonight."

"I enjoyed the dawn, though," Kabuto said, finishing the code phrase that Orochimaru's underlings used to identify themselves. "It's a wonderful day to stare at the wreckage of a society, don't you think?"

Isaribi glanced morosely over at Uzushio and scowled. "It's not all that pretty. The refugees took everything of value, and me and Kidōmaru went there a while back to scavenge the rest. It's actually quite ugly. All those scorch marks..." The fish girl wound the bandages tightly over her face as she spoke, covering the lingering traces of her

"We're not here for that," Kabuto said pleasantly. "Where's the package?"

In response, the kaima girl took out another scroll. This one was a product of Orochimaru's personal experimentation. Based off the scrolls used to transport corpses, it was designed to hold living beings in stasis for up to two weeks, halting their metabolism and cutting off their senses, much like an extradimensional isolation tank. Oto used them to transport prisoners and people who needed to travel... incognito. Kabuto was almost certain that Kin Tsuchi had her teammates take her to Fire Country every month or so to get her hair done, or whatever it was that insipid kunoichi did whenever Orochimaru wasn't working them to death.

"Here," she said sullenly, handing it to Kabuto. He examined the seal, extending his chakra sense to confirm that it contained who he thought it did.

"Excellent!" the medic chirped. "With this kind of service, Orochimaru will restore you to your normal body any time now!"

"I won't fall for that bullshit again," Isaribi protested weakly. "Amachi was—"

"Someone who you obeyed explicitly, killing hundreds of innocent sailors and intercepting critical intelligence in the process," Kabuto drawled. "You sullied your hands for him, and you'll do it for us. Won't you?"

She glared at the silver-haired irritant. "I _am_ coming with you to Oto, right Yakushi?" she asked. "I don't think I'm needed in that place anymore. All the experiments are... dead..."

She shuddered, thinking of the poor, twisted people that she'd help capture and transform. Just like her. It was so ironic, she wanted to cry.

Kabuto smiled nastily. "Ah, I suppose you can come. We have quite the walk back, now that I've sunken that ship. Oh, just think of all those ignorant, innocent men just lying at the bottom of the ocean! What a shame, that they're all dead! Don't you think so, _hypocrite_?"

Isaribi stoically ignored Kabuto's attempt to rile her by pushing past him. All the way up the town, the man just went _on and on_.

"Just think, we'll get to go through Yugakure! I hear they're having a festival in a week or so. What a sight, all those dripping, bleeding sacrifices to Jashin! It'll be wonderful!"


	3. Tobirama Senju's Last Secret

**Chapter 3: Tobirama Senju's Last Secret**

* * *

After that final meeting with the Kazekage, Orochimaru left the village immediately. By now, Kabuto would be travelling to Oto with the 'delivery', giving him only a week to finish his business and get back to the main village of Sound. Well, more if Kabuto and Isaribi decided to stop for the Festival of Scarlet. It was easy to get in during those days, as the price of hotel rooms dropped dramatically, but getting out was another matter...

He turned to the east, mentally preparing himself for the journey across River Country and north to Konoha's borders. This was probably the most uncomfortable part of being immortal, though the benefits arguably outweighed the risks. With a strange hand seal that no observing shinobi would be able to identify, Orochimaru's entire body broke apart into white snakes. A plethora of vipers, pythons, anacondas, and cobras raced across the desert sand, each slithing at a pace they could keep comfortably for the next few days. With a few hisses, the last of them burrowed under the dunes and vanished, leaving no trace of the sannin.

A mile away, Kisame Hoshigaki watched the affair through the lenses of a pair of binoculars. He waited until Orochimaru was gone, the pulled out a small two-way radio.

"He's gone," he muttered.

The chatter cleared as the man with the other radio opened his side of the secure channel.

"Confirm," Itachi ordered.

Sighing, Kisame stood up and pulled his wide-brimmed hat lower over his face. The desert was no place for a sharkman to be, yet here he was. Doing Itachi's dirty work, as usual. Hell, if the kid had been his partner just a few months before joining Akatsuki, the Uchiha incident would probably be Kisame's fault too. Figures.

With a burst of shinobi speed, Kisame arrived at the scene in less than two minutes. He looked carefully for traces of sage chakra, a clear sign that not all of the snakes had left. When that failed, he dug fruitlessly in the sand for a few minutes, trying to unearth possible stragglers.

"Nuthin'," he said into the radio, standing up and brushing the dust off of his hands. "We good to go?"

"Very well," Itachi said. "Rendezvous in Suna Training Ground Twelve."

"The one with the tornado and the spiky things?"

Itachi made a noise that sounded vaguely like "Hn," and conveyed just the right amounts of annoyance and exasperation. "Yes. Over."

"Over," Kisame grumbled turning back to the oasis of Suna. As he left, muttering about stupid Uchiha and stupid accurate tornadoes, he failed to see a lone albino adder poke its head out from beneath the sand. With one precise flick of its tail, it disappeared underneath Kisame's Akatsuki cloak, leaving no trace of Orochimaru behind.

**.:.**

Konoha patrols were surprisingly easy to evade. Orochimaru was an expert in taking on new faces, but this was just too simple. The rules for dealing with potential intruders were complex and varied, because no chūnin guard could possibly be expected to memorize every face in the village. Not having a Leaf forehead protector meant little, as the person in question might have simply forgotten their. Having one, conversely, was also a bad indicator of alignment. However, in dealing with such lax security, disguising oneself as an adult genin was usually the best way to go.

"Hello, sir," said one of the guards. Orochimaru looked over his shoulder at the man, mentally reassuring himself that his transformation was complete. It wouldn't do to kill a Konoha ninja, which wouldn't go over nearly as well as it had in Suna.

"Yes?" the sannin said irritably.

"The records here don't say your name. Did you forget to sign the register?"

The words 'Are you an imposter?' were unsaid, but no less audible.

"It seems I must have," he replied vaguely. "May I do that now?"

He took the offered clipboard and pen, looking down the list for the next open space. He considered his disguise: purple hair, dark skin and dull green eyes. He wore a standard shinobi outfit, albeit one missing the trappings of a chūnin, like the flak jacket and pockets for scrolls. The resemblance was only minor, but he supposed it would stand up to scrutiny.

With a flourish, the disguised Orochimaru signed his name as Kizashi Haruno.

"Thanks, Mister Haruno," the chūnin said. "Your time is up in about five hours, so keep that in mind." He turned to leave, then stopped. "Say, did you know that this was Tobirama Senju's personal training ground?"

Orochimaru grit his teeth and forced himself to pretend to be interested. "No, actually."

The chūnin grinned, showing a gap where one of his front teeth should have been. "It's true! The Second Hokage used a suiton jutsu to make this lake, and he used the water in it to practice his water manipulation. Sarutobi says this was his most favourite place in the world. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yes. _Cool_."

The guard frowned at Orochimaru's apparent lack of interest and walked away, clearly bored with 'Kizashi' and his attitude. Now that he was alone, Orochimaru stepped out over the lake with practiced ease, dropping his transformation.

"If I were Tobirama Senju, where would I put all of my little treasures?" he wondered out loud. "Let me see, I have no sense of humour, I'm a brilliant ninjutsu designer, a consummate politician, and I hate the Uchiha clan. However, I _am_ a Senju, which means that wherever I put my legacy, it's ultimately sentimental. Sentimental, but out of the way. Hence, this silly little pool. Training Ground... Hmm, somewhere in the fifties, I think."

Orochimaru looked down at the glassy surface of the pond, undisturbed by his footsteps. "There aren't any little hiding places down there, it would be too easy to empty the lake," he mused. "Not much else here, except for that waterfall a little while upriver. Ah, I remember Tsunade pushing Jiraiya off that cliff when sensei wasn't looking... then I pushed her, of course and Jiraiya tried to grope her, so she tried to crack his skull open, and that was when sensei summoned Enma..."

He trailed off, a wicked grin on his face. "You were a master of jikukan ninjutsu, weren't you?" he asked the phantom Hokage. "Eh, I should have expected overkill from you, Lord Tobirama."

He formed the ram seal, extending his senses outward with the exercise he learned in Ryūchi Cave. Sure enough, what little senjutsu skill he had informed him that there was a large concentration of natural chakra in the centre of the lake, just below the surface. Delighted, Orochimaru slammed both palms against the surface of the lake.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu," he said, improvising the technique that dragged things between planes by haphazardly affixing a dragon seal to the end and latching the technique onto the anomaly. The node of chakra pulsed in time with his summons, and as the dimensional barriers broke a wooden chest bound with iron bobbed up to the surface of the lake. Orochimaru happily seized the chest and dragged it to the shore.

"Are you what I think you are?" he asked the inanimate object, negligently tearing off the lock that was designed to keep high-level shinobi out. Inside were two things: a stack of paper, presumably covered in the ideas and creations of the Second. The other was what _appeared_ to be the handle of a sword missing its blade. It was a very pretty handle, almost more like a torch than anything. A voice in the back of Orochimaru's mind said 'Vajra'.

"Hmm," said the sannin. He promptly threw the handle back into the lake.

_'I knew he was sentimental, but keeping the handle of a broken sword?'_

Orochimaru produced a length of ninja wire from a pocket and bound the chest up. He looked at the chest with mild disdain, then unhinged his jaw and swallowed it whole. Three nightmare-inducing minutes later, the cache had disappeared inside his belly, and Orochimaru looked unusually satisfied.

"Could have used some salt," he commented to himself, before dissolving into hundreds of tiny white snakes.

**.:.**

The Vilage of Hot Springs was not, in fact, rioting in celebration of the dark god Jashin. Isaribi heaved a sigh of relief, before Kabuto happily informed her that cabals usually operated at night, abducting people from their beds and spiriting them away to be disemboweled and left to die in mass graves, where dying children were crushed beneath the weight of the bodies piled on top of them.

Isaribi figured that the population of Yu wasn't actually high enough to support such bloody festivities. Kabuto enjoyed needling her, and there was nothing to suggest that today was any different. Nevertheless, she resolved to sleep with one eye open and a knife under her pillow.

The two of them stopped at a hotel, charmingly named 'The Bleeding Heart', complete with a signboard bearing a picture of a human heart with a sickle through it. The owner was a weedy little man who wore glasses and spoke in a high-pitched whine.

"Take the package up to our room and keep it safe," he said, as soon as they got their room keys. "I have a few errands to run here, and I trust I can leave you alone for a few hours, neh?"

"Of course, Yakushi," Isaribi said, "but even if you couldn't, what would you do? Seal me away? Chain me to the bed?"

"Actually, I would force-activate your transformation," Kabuto said flatly. "I'm sure they don't take kindly to demons in Yu. It might be difficult to escape with all those ninja and Jashin priests on your tail."

Isaribi sat back on the bed, sulking, and Kabuto left in high spirits. He slapped a seal filled with pressurized knockout gas on the other side of the door just in case, then left the hotel.

Yugakure was a village of low wooden buildings and rocky outcrops. It had been built into the terrain, and the roads swerved around natural obstacles like trees and hills. It was also a tourist destination, which might have been counter to its status as a hidden village, but also gave it one of the most powerful economies in the world. Visitors from as far away as the Land of Earth came for the relaxing atmosphere and relatively rare insight into the life of a shinobi.

Of course, it was toned down for the civilians, but even the less flashy jutsu were enough to stun the crowd. Their best showmen were genin and chūnin trained extensively in taijutsu, running in mock tournaments similar to the chūnin exams. If you wanted to see ninja fight without risking your life, this was the best option.

As Kabuto neared the centre of the village, it became more and more apparent that the festival hadn't started yet. Yu was built over a massive geothermal vent, and dozens of hotsprings spewed steam over the preparations being made. Striding through the fog, the medic made his way towards the nerve centre of Yugakure's operations, ignoring the gallows and guillotines being erected on street corners. In truth, almost all of the people executed here were criminals, men of ill-gotten power whose deaths were showcased in the goriest three days on the continent. Unfortunately, the Festival wasn't handled in a particularly professional manner, and there were always rumours of civilians disappearing in the middle of the night in the month leading up to the festival.

Shrouded in fog, Kabuto's destination was the office of the Head Jōnin. It was a flat rectangle of a building, built of ceramic and concrete. Only one door lead in and out, though unofficially there were many secret exits and divisions. Although it occupied an entire city block, the office was like an iceberg: it hid 90% of its mass underground. Kabuto knew that beneath his feet, the thrumming activity of hundreds of ninja ran like the heartbeat of a giant.

He brushed his way past the security check with a genjutsu, passed the carriage-like devices meant to reach the lower levels (he believed they were called 'elevators') and took the stairs at the back of the building. The inside was small, though not claustrophobically so, and consisted of a few levels. This was where Hot Spring ninja conducted espionage, stored files, interrogated prisoners, and did everything under the sun to keep their country safe.

Kabuto stopped first on the third floor down, which was the medical facility. He left the stairs, quickly moving through the organized chaos of doctors, nurses, medics and patients being treated for injuries in the field. In a secluded corner was an office, the door to which proclaimed:

* * *

**Executive Director**

Dr. Kabuto Yakushi, M.D.

* * *

**.:.**

"Is everyone ready?"

"We're in place. Give the signal before you start."

"Actually, we're not. Dosu keeps picking at his bandages and looking up at the clouds."

"_Shut up_, Kin!"

"He's probably thinking about _Tayuuuuuuya_!"

"Kin, stop poking Dosu. Dosu, get your ass in gear, yeah."

"_I'm_ the team leader, so you can just shut up now."

"Whatever. Dosu, do it."

Dosu Kinuta, scrubbing all thoughts of a partially disrobed Tayuya from his mind, aimed the Melody Arm at the caravan passing through the gully below. In the Land of Earth, travelling at the bottom of a ravine was much easier and safer than crossing the ridges, but made ambushes that much easier. To combat this, they typically brought along almost twice as many mercenaries and ninja. Not that it made any difference to the Oto shinobi.

The sound waves from Dosu's arm disrupted the equilibrium of merchanta and warriors alike. On the other ridge, Zaku Abumi took careful shots with the weapons in his palms, each pulse of sound pulverizing a single target. A few of the ninja escaped, but most had their grey matter scrambled by the ambush.

"How many got out?" asked Kin Tsuchi, keeping careful watch for retaliatory attacks.

"Two," Dosu said into the radio. "The big one and the target. They're probably already on the way—!"

"Suiton: Mizurappa!" Kurotsuchi bellowed, blowing a massive stream of water from her mouth. Caught off guard, Dosu grunted in surprise as the blast knocked him off his feet and into the crevasse. He managed to take hold on the wall with his chakra, but the grip was precarious. Kin swerved and retaliated, throwing a handful of senbon into her attacker's rib cage. Kurotsuchi landed in a crouch, panting.

"Who are you?" the Iwa kunoichi hissed, clutching at her injured side.

"Our names aren't important," Kin said. "Only our mission. Surrender, and we will return you to Ōnoki unharmed."

"Mmm... No," Kurotsuchi said. "I think I'll kill you and bring your head to my grandfather. Sekkaigyō no jutsu!"

Kin bent backwards, dodging the hurled chunk of quicklime aimed for her face. The attack was a little off, which she attributed to Kurotsuchi's side wounds. Dosu managed to pull himself over the edge of the ravine with only his left hand, and with his right he fired an inaudible soundwave at Kurotsuchi. Stunned, the Tsuchikage's granddaughter was unable to dodge Kin's return volley of senbon. These ones were much more accurate, striking vital points across her body. She slumped into unconsciousness.

Dosu pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the ache in his left forearm. He reached for his earpiece, before realizing that it had fallen out in his fall.

"Hey," he said to Kin, "ask Zaku where the other guy went."

"You do it," Kin groused. She was crouching over Kurotsuchi's body with enough rope to hogtie and gag her, to stop her from using any Yōton techniques.

"I'M GOOD!" Zaku shouted over the gap, his figure small against the horizon.

"WHERE'S THE OTHER ONE?" Dosu shouted back.

"I DUNNO, HE'S PRETTY STEALTHY, YEAH!"

"Stop it, you're going to give our position away!" Kin complained. She took out a stasis scroll and sealed Kurotsuchi's body in it. With a warm glow, the kunoichi vanished.

"Relax, there's no one– WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Dosu screamed fearfully.

Zaku was aiming his right hand at them, a look of intense concentration on his face. There was a muffled bang, followed by a much louder splat. A large man, who had apparently been sneaking up behind them for a surprise attack, no longer had a left arm. Akatsuchi stared at the massive wound in shock, giving Dosu the opportunity to grab the man's other shoulder and throw him off the precipice.

He didn't scream until the very end, and when he did it was small and weak.

"Huh," Kin said. "For such a fatass, he was pretty quiet."

"Let's just bring the girl back to Oto," Dosu muttered, embarrassed enough by being caught off guard and scared by Zaku's scarily accurate attack. "We have a schedule to meet, after all."

* * *

**Suiton: Mizurappa— Water Release: Water Trumpet**

**Yōton: Sekkaigyō no jutsu— Lava Release: Quicklime Congealing technique.**

**Does anyone want me to put translations for techniques at the bottom? I'm sure you all know what 'Kage Bunshin' means, but what about some of the more obscure ones?**


	4. The Call to Arms

**Chapter 4: The Call to Arms**

* * *

After leaving his office, Kabuto went lower into the subterranean base, this time wearing the orange robe of a high-ranking Yu ninja. The other medics and nurses greeted him as Dr. Yakushi, and he smiled and waved back, occasionally offering diagnostic advice and discussing the merits of this or that anaesthetic. God, he hated these people.

Another three floors down was the office of the actual Head Jōnin. Originally, the position had been called Yukage, but the title of Shadow was now reserved for the heads of the five largest villages. Only those that sought to join their ranks dared to use titles such as Hoshikage or Otokage. Yugakure, however, was meant to stay out of the limelight, and so the greatest ninja of the village laboured in relative obscurity.

Here, there were sweeping arches supporting much larger ceilings. Walls of pink crystal supported grandiose motifs. At the far end, above a small desk manned by one person, was a frieze of a massive tree. In the branches were two monkeys, one holding a ball of fire and the other a sword. In the tree's roots, a snake coiled around the trunk.

Kabuto approached the desk. Behind it, a young boy with magenta eyes and a mane of green hair was hunched over a pile of paperwork. Every few seconds, a rat would dart from behind a wall or out of a nearby corridor, drop a bunched piece of paper into the pile, and depart once more.

"Yūkimaru," he called, drawing the secretary's attention. The boy looked up, and, seeing Kabuto, his face broke into a wide grin.

"Kabuto!" he exclaimed childishly, "what are you doing here?!"

"Oh, I was just passing by and I decided to visit the Head Jōnin of the village," he said nonchalantly. "May I make an appointment?"

Yūkimari glanced down at the paperwork on his desk. He grabbed a bundle of documents bound by a paperclip, scanned the title, and promptly ripped them in half.

"Go right on in!" he said, beaming.

Thanking him unsincerely, Kabuto walked around the desk and into the office of the leader of Yugakure. It was actually rather unimpressive compared to the rest of the building, being small with wooden paneling and an oil lamp on a writing desk. Kabuto guessed that her official visitors were mostly greeted in the foyer by Yūkimaru.

"Hello, Guren," he said to the blue-haired woman. The kunoichi looked back, smiling slightly in spite of what his presence meant.

"Doctor Yakushi, what a rare pleasure it is to have you in town," she deadpanned. "I take it you aren't here for the Festival of Scarlet?"

"Alas, much as I would love to see children disembowled for my own amusement, I can do that on my own," he said with faux regretfulness.

"Indeed. In Oto, we call that Tuesday," Guren replied. "Tell me, what will you be needing for our next ambitious endeavour?"

"People, mostly," Kabuto answered. "Yourself, obviously, along with Misumi Tsurugi and Yoroi Akadō. Are there any other ninja you can spare for the invasion effort?"

"My daughter is able to use Shōton, but she's only four," Guren reasoned. "Yūkimaru is staying here to run the village, and my best jōnin are otherwise occupied as spies and the like. The best I can give you is a few chūnin, although I was hoping to tighten security around the festival this year."

"Eh, what's a civilian here or there in the grand scale of Lord Orochimaru's goal?" Kabuto asked slyly. Guren planted her face in her palm, her orange robe swishing with the motion.

"Very well. That'll be one jōnin, sixteen chūnin, and two genin who really should have been promoted years ago," she said sulkily. "Suishō Bunshin no jutsu."

Two bright green copies of Guren materialized behind her, made at first of jade but slowly gaining her features until they were indistinguishable from the original.

"You, get Yoroi and Misumi. Send them to..."

"The Bleeding Heart," Kabuto supplied. "Room 105. There's a kunoichi covered in bandages in there. Break down the door if she doesn't let you in."

Guren rolled her eyes and pointed at the other clone. "You, go out there and have Yūkimaru give you a list of off-duty chūnin. Then, issue them a B-rank mission to go to Otogakure and wait for further instructions from Lord Orochimaru."

"You're throwing them into a war for only a few thousand ryō? For shame," Kabuto chastised. "As proud ninja of Yugakure, they should be going for free."

"Make a note to double their pay when they come back," Guren soldiered on, ignoring him. The jade clones nodded and disappeared in twin puffs of smoke, though Kabuto could hear one reappear only a few meters away at Yūkimaru's desk. They spoke for a bit, before the clone vanished again.

"You have to come too, you know," Kabuto said. "Get your affairs in order, we need to be in Sound by afternoon tomorrow. Bring your old uniform."

"That old thing?" she groused. "But it's ugly! The green and the purple, ugh! And that stupid rope sash in the middle is ridiculous."

"We're getting rid of the rope," Kabuto informed her. "It seems that the addition of the oversized belt was specifically to ensure nobody took us seriously. Otogakure will be changing its official uniform to something with a bit more camouflage... after the invasion."

"Sometimes, Lord Orochimaru is impossible to understand," Guren muttered. "I'll see you in Oto, Kabuto Yakushi. Now get out of my office, you stink of blood and arrogance."

**.:.**

One of Oto's most important buildings was The Stack. Administrators worked in various offices around the village, and prisoners were held in jails adjoining the numerous laboratories studding the village, but The Stack was the place where shinobi went to do Orochimaru's bidding. The chūnin and jōnin lounges were there, as was the mission board, a few methods of long-distance communication (including a new method involving linked genjutsu and human sacrifice), and areas for jōnin-sensei to teach their genin. The makings of an Academy were being constructed on the first two floors, though it was low priority due to the lack of applicants.

In a small, drab room on the third floor, Dosu and Kin sat around a table waiting for their sensei to come back. The scroll with Kurotsuchi sealed inside lay innocuously on the table, its small size belying the weight of a teenage girl lying within. The door opened, and Zaku came back from the bathroom.

"The moon is full tonight," Dosu said immediately. Kin reached around and smacked him in the back of the head.

"Idiot! He just went to the bathroom!"

"Well, here I am, yeah," Zaku mumbled. "When's sensei gonna be here? I'm hungry."

"I think– wait a minute, didn't you just eat before we came here?"

"Well, I'm hungry again," Zaku said petulantly.

"You just ate an entire fucking lamb leg!" Kin yelled. "How hungry can you possibly be?"

"Hungry enough to eat your cooking..."

"You just keep going, huh," Dosu commented absently.

"YOU BASTARD!" Kin roared, rearing back and punching Zaku in the chest. The Oto genin didn't even flinch, but his form wavered to reveal a smug looking man who'd been using a henge. He smiled superiorly, catching Kin's fist in his hand.

"You should've listened to Dosu," Kidōmaru said with mock sadness. "What would you do if I was a spy from Konoha or Kumo? For shame! I thought you were better players than that."

"What did you do with Zaku?" Dosu asked nervously.

Kidōmaru grinned and waved his hand, dispelling a genjutsu. Just outside the open door, the wall shimmered to reveal Zaku, limbs spread like a skydiver and upside-down. A few patches of sticky golden goop held him to the wall, with an extra one sealing his mouth shut, and he was shooting a death glare at his jōnin-sensei.

Just then, Tayuya walked by. She paused in front of Zaku, looking the trapped genin up and down. The genjutsu master snickered and walked away, leaving Zaku bright red and looking murderous.

"He failed the skill challenge to evade a bored jōnin-sensei," Kidōmaru said flatly. "So did you, actually. Dosu gets part marks for trying, but I know that code too. For being the greatest failure, we will be passing Zaku on to Lord Orochimaru for his next experiment. Now, on to business. Do you have the target, or do I need to cut Zaku down?"

Kin pointed at the scroll on the table. Kidōmaru opened his mouth, and a stream of webbing caught it and yanked it into his hand.

"Good job," he said fondly. "You've taken out a mid-level boss without taking any damage. You're overpowered, but you're still in the first world. Therefore, all three of you have the chance to level up soon. We're going to the chūnin exams in Konoha."

"YES!" Dosu shouted, accompanied by the inverted Zaku grunting ecstatically through his gag.

"Oh, and we're going to be overthrowing the local government while we're there," Kidōmaru added as an afterthought. "It might make getting a promotion a bit harder, but it looks pretty good on your resumé."

**.:.**

Orochimaru ruled Otogakure with an iron fist from a throne room set into a hillside, but he lived in his study. The instant he arrived in the enclosed room, he fell to his knees and vomited. The disgusting gastric liquid seeped into his luxurious carpeting, and he moaned a string of vile curses before hurling again. Knees weak, he forced himself to stand up, but immediately felt dizzy and fell down again.

This body was doomed. It had once belonged to Shiore, a shinobi from Kusagakure who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now it was his. That was nearly three years ago, and a shadow clone had taken his place on the team. Shiore's jōnin-sensei probably wondered why he hadn't taken a direct hit in so long, but allowing it to be dispelled was too risky. The stress of holding himself together was finally taking its toll.

He needed a new body.

Orochimaru opened his mouth again, this time far wider than it should be able to. Tobirama Senju's trunk fell into the puddle of stomach acid, and the tip of the Kusanagi began to emerge before he forced his mouth shut again. Hastily shoving the cache to the side, Orochimaru stumbled forward and disappeared in a flicker of flames.

Elsewhere, Zaku knelt before Orochimaru's throne, idly picking bits of Kidōmaru's webbing out of his uniform. The snake sannin appeared in the room, looking drawn and tired as he hobbled to the throne and sat down.

"Um, my Lord?" Zaku said nervously.

"Silence!" Orochimaru hissed angrily, massaging his temples with his fingers. "You are here to serve me, not to offer medical advice. Stand up."

Zaku stood before the Otokage, wondering what the great man could possibly want from him. After a few moments of tense silence, Orochimaru spoke.

"You know what a jinchūriki is, yes?"

"Certainly, Lord. Containers for the bijū, are they not?"

"True... but what if the entire beast is not sealed?" Orochimaru told him. "What if only part of the bijū is available? The result, you see, is a pseudo-jinchūriki. Much like a true jinchūriki, a pseudo-jinchūriki has access to an array of jutsu derived specifically from the Tailed Beast used in their creation, but they do not contain the beast themselves. Therefore, although they aren't as strong as a jinchūriki, they have much more control over their abilities and don't have to deal with the threat of a vengeful demon escaping."

Curious in spite of himself, Zaku asked, "Why haven't I heard of them before? Surely if they're so powerful, there would be more of them."

Orochimaru looked vaguely impressed. "How... insightful," he murmured. "Truly, only two men in history have become pseudo-jinchūriki: Kinkaku and Ginkaku of Kumogakure. It was an accident, really; they were eaten by the Kyūbi, and to escape they chewed their way out of the demon's belly. Unfortunately, genealogy suggests that they were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths himself, and it was probably a fluke. However, their method of eating the bijū's flesh was rather crude."

Zaku had an unfortunate feeling that he knew where this was going, but Orochimaru's passion was visible in his face, so he kept quiet.

"In the October that the Kyūbi attacked Konoha, rumours went around that a pseudo-jinchūriki had been created. They were quashed almost immediately, but I became curious. Could I create one myself? Surely, taking into account chakra flow patterns and using cell samples from compatible jinchūriki it would be possible, yes?"

"I don't—"

"What if I could use one of my greatest trophies to create my greatest weapons?" Orochimaru went on, his voice rising stridently. "The ultimate ninja! Armed with the power of a bijū, but unencumbered by its presence! It would be astounding! Unheard of! The future is now, Zaku!"

"What the—?"

Orochimaru formed a handseal he didn't recognize, and suddenly Zaku couldn't move. Terrified, the Oto genin was helpless as Orochimaru hiked up his shirt and began drawing an unusual symbol over his sternum.

"This will add an additional chakra source to your Gate of Pain," Orochimaru explained, though Zaku was too far gone to be listening. Orochimaru went on. "A long time ago, I walked into Kumo and killed a doctor... Eh, to make a long story short, I now have one of the Hachibi's horns and a cell culture from Fukai, his jinchūriki at the time. Mm, sure there was a bit of a bloodbath afterwards, but this is an omelette situation. They were all eggs, and so are you!"

**.:.**

Outside, Kidōmaru was waiting with Kin and Dosu for Zaku to come out.

"What's taking so long?"

"He's probably just—"

"AAAAAAAAARRGH!"

"Fufufufufu!"

Kin and Dosu stared at each other, then turned to stare at Kidōmaru. The Sound jōnin shrugged.

"What can I say? Lord Orochimaru said he'd stop the screaming," he said idly

"What, like with anaesthetic?" Kin asked hopefully.

Kidōmaru looked at her for a second, then burst out laughing.

"Oh... oh... Ahahahaha!" he choked out, his first two pairs of hands slapping his thighs while the third and fourth gripped his sides. "Oh man, Lord Orochimaru using painkillers? Ha ha ha hahaha!"

* * *

**This is the last chapter before the chūnin exams proper. Some of the things I did here should be explained.**

**We know nothing about Yugakure save that Hidan killed his neighbours there before becoming a rogue ninja. It's not much of a stretch to say that Jashinism is a local phenomenon, or that Orochimaru has installed a puppet government.**

**That said, Guren is here because Orochimaru needs all hands on deck for the invasion. Her absence in canon can be forgiven, as she probably didn't exist as a character at the time, but now she does. Shōton— Crystal Release has joined the battle!**

**Kidōmaru is Team Dosu's jōnin-sensei. It's possible, I guess.**

**I'm not sure about the manga, but the anime holds that Gyūki is missing a horn because Orochimaru drugged his last jinchūriki and cut it off. Now, if _I_ was a mad scientist with a demon's horn, I'd do something like this with it.**

**Is Orochimaru overpowered yet? Hopefully, because the action starts here!**


	5. Do You Dare?

**Chapter 5: Do You Dare?**

* * *

"Hey, who the hell are you?" Konohamaru demanded of the strange intruder. The face paint and ominous black cloak looked too suspicious to pass by.

Kankurō looked back at the Hokage's grandson, his gaze strangely blank. "I'm Kankurō," he said tiredly. "Whaddya want, kid?"

Konohamaru fumed. "You're wearing a Suna headband! Whatcha doin' here, huh?"

"Chūnin exams," was the succinct reply.

"What are you waiting around for?" asked Temari, who also looked distinctly tired. She was a few feet ahead of him, and her mother's fan dangled limply from one hand. "C'mon, we have to go check into our hotel. Baki needs to put in our registration before tonight."

"Yeah, coming," her younger brother replied. Together, they trudged off.

Konohamaru was more than a little confused. Two ninja from Suna with bags under their eyes, wandering through Konoha? They said they were here for the chūnin exams, but he didn't buy it. There had to be some ulterior motive! Now, what would Naruto do...?

Naruto would totally follow them! Then, when he figured out their evil plans, he would kick their asses and bring them to the Hokage! Smiling gleefully, Konohamaru erected a terrible disguise and began following the Kazekage's children.

**.:.**

"SHUT UP!" Ibiki thundered. The auditorium held hundreds of people, and its high ceiling gave every voice a resounding echo. Nevertheless, Ibiki's voice was the loudest, and soon the hordes of jōnin were quiet.

"Thank you," he said again, this time much more quietly. On his left at the table was Anko Mitarashi, chewing idly on a stick of pastry, and on her left was Hayate Gekkō, who looked somewhat embarrased just to be there.

"Welcome to the Bi-Annual Chūnin Selection Exams," the proctor announced to the audience. "You have already been informed of the three events which will be taking place over the next month and a half, beginning tomorrow. As a... precaution, your documentation will be scanned for authenticity today, after which you will be officially registered. Before we do that, however, the Hokage has asked me to look for any late acceptances. Anyone who has yet to submit their genin team will do so now, please."

The room was silent for a moment, as the assembled ninja from all walks of life looked each other over. Who would want to enter a genin team now, of all times?

"I will," said an old, powerful voice. Walking purposefully out of the crowd with a cane by his side, Danzō approached the platform.

Ibiki grunted neutrally. "Name, village and documentation."

"Danzō Shimura, of Konohagakure." Danzō produced a sheet of paper covered in writing, which Ibiki snatched out of his hands. He read it quickly, then set it down on the table.

"Anyone else?" he demanded.

"I will as well," said another man. This one had a head of orange hair, combed into a spiky mop. "Yahiko Sato, of Amegakure," he said, offering his own papers for consideration. Ibiki dropped those into the pile too.

"Last call!" he shouted, waiting for any final applicants.

At the back of the room, a door popped open. Izumo Kamizuki swept forwards, dropped another paper into the pile, and vanished again. Ibiki picked it up.

"It seems Kabuto Yakushi, Yoroi Akadō and Misumi Tsurugi are trying again," he remarked.

Anko spat out her dango stick and grinned. "No kidding, huh?" she chortled. "Next thing you know, Kosuke is gonna come in!"

There were some laughs from the Konoha jōnin who knew who she was talking about. Kosuke Maruboshi had declined a direct promotion to jōnin for over four decades. Kabuto, on the other hand, had been trying and failing in the chūnin exam for almost five years.

Hayate coughed quietly. "I-If there's nothing else," he forced out, "please come back tomorrow. Take your passports to the back of the room, and we will begin the process of ensuring you are who you say you are."

**.:.**

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm not going to lose to _any_ of you sorry ninja!"

The crowd of genin stared at the blond as if he had two heads. Desperate to do damage control, Sakura wrenched him into a headlock, apologizing for her teammate with Tourette's Syndrome while Sasuke stood to the side and pretended neither of them existed.

"You're kinda arrogant, for someone who's going to die!" Kiba remarked arrogantly. Akamaru barked in agreement.

"You shouldn't dismiss his abilities based on his propensity to brag," said Shino. "Why? Because you are hardly a pushover yourself, and you are quite possibly louder than even Naruto."

"N-Naruto isn't t-_that_ l-loud," Hinata said shyly. "H-He's just c-confident, that's all."

"Meh, Sasuke's even more confident," Shikamaru said dryly. "So's Kiba, Ino and Sasuke, but you don't see _them_ shooting their mouths off."

"Actually, Kiba was– Gurk!" Whatever else Naruto had to say was viciously cut off by Sakura tightening her forearm around his neck.

"No!" she emphasized. "You've already put your foot in your mouth; try not to swallow it, you blockhead!"

The door burst open then, admitting a silver-haired genin with glasses. Following him were two other ninja, both of whom looked like they'd just run a marathon. "Sorry," Kabuto said, with only a hint of exhaustion creeping into his voice. "We just got back from a mission to Hot Spring Country's border, and we had to run to get here on time."

On cue, the clock struck eight, and Ibiki Morino appeared at the head of the room in a puff of smoke, accompanied by a squad of chūnin from Konoha's Torture division.

"All right you lot, _shut the hell up_!" he roared, again employing his intimidating presence. Then there was silence. Instantly.

"Good," he said, apparently satisfied. "Congratulations on making it to the chūnin exams. A third of you are still on the second floor, about to be failed. For now, everyone take a look at the seats. Find the one with your name on it, and sit down. The first portion of the exam is a written test."

"What? NO WAY!" Naruto moaned in despair. Though they didn't say it, the sentiment was echoed by a good chunk of the room's occupants. Miserably, they shuffled around until they found their respective seats and sat in them.

"Now, this test is fairly simple," Ibiki told the assembled genin. "There are ten questions, and for each question you have two points. If you fail to answer a question or answer incorrectly, a point will be subtracted from your total. Each member of your team must have at least one point at the end in order to pass.

_'Great,'_ thought Sakura, glancing at the distraught Naruto.

_'Oh dear,'_ thought Shino, discretely watching Kiba out the corner of his eye.

_'How troublesome,'_ thought Shikamaru. Ino could probably cheat her way to victory, but Chōji was a lost cause.

"There are extra rules that concern cheating," Ibiki went on, inadvertently dashing Shikamaru's hopes. "If you get caught cheating twice, you fail. Furthermore, if you fail, your entire team will be disqualified with you. The first time you are caught cheating, it will be recorded by the examiners. It will not reflect well on you while promotions are being considered."

Ibiki gestured to the examiners, who were taking up positions around the room. "These chūnin will be watching your every move, so getting away with it is going to be next to impossible. You have one hour to finish, use it wisely. Turn over your test papers now."

The was a rustle as hundreds of papers were flipped over. Naruto scanned the first page's questions. Number one was a cryptogram, and number two was a physics problem dealing with the trajectory of a shuriken thrown on a flat plane. Neither of them made any sense at all.

_'Dammit, how am I supposed to know what all this gibberish is? What the hell is a 'ballistic projectile'?_' He looked around the room, but it seemed that the majority of the competition was equally stumped. Even Sasuke was staring at the paper, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. On his right, Hinata was staring at her test paper with a grimace.

Only a few people were actively working on their tests. In particular, Naruto saw Sakura hunched over hers, feverishly working out the answer to question three, which dealt with the history of Hōzuki-jō. Every once in a while, Shikamaru would mutter something under his breath and write something down, and near the front a pale boy was steadily filling out his paper. A few others were trying, but they seemed to be the islands in a sea of confused faces.

Ten minutes later and no more enlightened (though Sakura seemed to be halfway through already), an examiner with bandages over the top half of his face stood up. Lunging forward, he grabbed Chōji by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him in the air.

"Chōji Akimichi, you are disqualified."

"What?" Chōji yelped, trying futilely to twist out of the grip. He had, in fact, been looking at the test of the pale boy in front of him, but he thought he hadn't been so obvious about it.

Ibiki picked up a list of the applicants and crossed off some names. "Chōji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara," he read off. "Team Ten of Konohagakure. Get out."

"Chōji!" Ino hissed, standing up. "How could you blow it so quickly? I totally had it under— don't you _dare_ say this is troublesome, you lazy bastard! This wasn't even hard for you! Chōji, put the chips away! Why the hell did you bring chips to an exam?! YOU AREN'T EVEN LISTENING TO ME!"

The door closed on her, shutting out the enraged monologue.

Now that he was looking for it, Naruto started to see plenty of people cheating. Hinata's eyes, which he vaguely recalled were a dōjutsu of some sort, were surrounded by bulging veins. Whatever it was, she was getting the answers almost as fast as she could write them down. The girl on his left, who had a pair of buns in her hair, took out a hand mirror and pretended to adjust the wooden sticks that held them in place. Also, depending on the angle it was at, she might have been copying off the guy two rows back, but he couldn't tell.

Sasuke, sharingan activated, recorded the hand movements of the woman diagonal in front and to his right. Shino had placed an insect on someone else's table, and was now translating its clicks and moans into legible writing. A boy with orange hair slumped forward in his seat at the same time a man across the room stiffened and started to 'check his answers'. Amost everyone was trying to cheat, aside from the ones who genuinely knew the answers.

Well, almost everyone. The redheaded boy was just staring straight ahead, and hadn't even picked up his pencil. The boy wearing the black cloak and the ridiculous makeup was busy folding his test into an intricate paper airplane. If this were any other place and time, Naruto would have asked how he was making it and whether it was any good.

Across the room, a blonde Suna kunoichi was fruitlessly trying to answer question two, with the sneaking suspicion that she was doing it wrong.

Over the next half hour, over thirty people were noticed cheating a second time. Unlike the first time, subsequent evictions simply consisted of Ibiki reading off a set of names and ordering them to leave without warning. The tension was rising in the room as everyone struggled to find the correct information without being caught.

At the same time, Naruto finalized a plan in his mind. He only had one shot to pass the test and not let his team down, so it had to be just right. He sat, and he waited.

**.:.**

With just under twenty minutes left in the test, Naruto Uzumaki stood up. Immediately, hundreds of pairs of eyes locked on to him. Shrugging carelessly under the attention, he waltzed across the room to Sakura's chair, where the pinkette was idly twirling her pencil and waiting for the tenth question to be announced.

Without further ado, he picked up her test and began reading the solution to question one. Sakura's mouth dropped open, as did several other peoples', but nobody made a move to stop him.

"Hey, how did you figure this out?" he asked curiously, thumbing the paper.

"It's a polyalphabetic cypher," she answered automatically, slipping into a tone of lecture. "The encryption of one letter is determined by that of the unencrypted letter before it, so that– Naruto, what are you doing?!"

"If we get caught twice, we're out," Naruto said casually. "I'm only going to get caught once, though. Hey, this is pretty clever!"

Sakura blushed, but stayed silent. Under the watchful gaze of the proctor, Naruto put the paper back down and ambled back to his own desk. In the last minutes before the final question, he hastily parroted Sakura's answers for the first two questions.

Ibiki stood up. "Before we begin the tenth question, there are some additional rules to go over."

"_Great_," Nejiri muttered under his breath. He knew from experience that this was the do-or-die portion of the exam.

"If you answer this question correctly, you are your team will pass on to the next portion of the exams. If you do not, you and your team will fail. Furthermore, if you do not answer the question correctly, you will be prohibited from ever taking the chūnin exams again... along with your team."

"WHAT THE HECK?" Kiba bellowed. "There are people here who've taken this exam before!"

"You have the misfortune of being in one of _my_ scenarios," Ibiki deadpanned. "Feel fortunate that you will survive. For those of you who do not feel confident in seeing this portion out to the end, there is a third option. If you choose _not_ to take the tenth question, your team will fail automatically. However, you will be allowed to take the exam again at a later date. Any of you who wish to take this route, please say so now."

Almost immediately, hands started going up. Ibiki and the examiners started taking notes furiously, and soon the proctor began to speak.

"Keiko Honda, M, Ukyo Yotsuki. Team Eleven of Kumogakure. Nejiri, Sachiko, Tomomi. Team Two of Sunagakure..."

**.:.**

Hinata Hyūga thought hard about what she wanted to do. Kurenai's recommendation for the status of chūnin was a great honour, especially so quickly after graduating from the Academy. It was her father's desire that she attend and do well, and thus far she'd done the first one. How the examiners had failed to see her use of the byakugan was beyond her, though it was possible that fell into the realm of 'one time only', like Naruto's method. She had quickly observed Neji while looking for answers, and was somewhat surprised to see that his byakugan was inactive. What you'd expect from a prodigy, she supposed.

Now, she had a choice. What Hinata wanted to do more than anything else in the world was to stay and move on. With chūnin rank under her belt, she could finally earn some measure of independence from her clan. Neji would be forced to acknowledge her prowess, and best of all, Naruto would finally notice her for the talented kunoichi she was!

(Privately, she wished she could have breezed through the exam on brain power alone like Sakura, but if the two of them ever clashed in a fight...)

On the other hand, she had more than her family and her crush to think of. Shino's and Kiba's futures both relied on the choice she was about to make. It pained her to say it, but being barred from ever taking the chūnin exam again was a bigger blow to her team as a whole than simply to herself. With that privilege forever beyond their grasps, none of them could hope to become the heir to their parents. At least she had a younger sister who wanted to replace her, but Shibi depended wholly on his only child. It would be devastating to Kiba, whose older sister had passed the right to succeed Tsume on to him.

Frankly, Kiba was too stubborn to admit there was a chance of failure. Shino was inscrutable as always, but Hinata suspected he would not fold. It was up to her, then, to shoulder the burden of her teammates' hate. She thought about Neji's smug grin and Naruto's smiling face, wondering which of them was right.

Amidst a sea of weakening faith, Hinata looked at Naruto's determined face one last time. Then, arm trembling, she raised her hand.

* * *

**Firstly, I figured I would change a portion of the exam. Not much, just enough to avoid using the stale version from canon. Giving everyone two chances instead of five makes the tension a little more palpable, and therefore I'd imagine a greater number of people would crack.**

**Yes, Team Kurenai and Team Asuma didn't make it. Unlike canon, Chōji figured out the purpose of the test, and instead of waiting for Ino to switch with him and do his test for him, he tried to cheat anyways. Without any real talent for subtlety, he failed his teammates. Shikamaru and Ino would have otherwise passed.**

**Hinata's decision at the end was supposed to be a mirror of Naruto's decision. While he has unyielding belief in his teammates and himself, Hinata looks up to him as a paragon of faith. So it stands to reason that she might waver when he wouldn't. Being stuck as a genin forever, in her mind, is infinitely less preferable than failing her team so they can improve themselves and try again later.**

**Why did I do this? Because I want to make Naruto a puppeteer, but I also want to make it believable, and I want to write interesting fight scenes. Team 8 and Team 10 won't surprise and delight as much as their substitutes will, I think.**


	6. 1001 Ways to Use Sage Chakra

**Chapter 6: 1001 Ways to Use Sage Chakra**

* * *

From behind the guise of a Kusa shinobi, Orochimaru watched his former apprentice with something akin to joy in his eyes. When she smashed carelessly through the window, his gaze zeroed in on her face. When she cut the Uzumaki's cheek and licked his blood in an affectionate parody of his own greeting to her so many years ago, his heart skipped a beat. When she told them all that they were going to die, he felt his blood rush to his cheeks.

They were going to have so much _fun_ together!

"Before you go and get your scrolls, there's something else you should know!" Anko shouted at the genin. "As proctor this year, I've been given the option to, metaphorically, spice things up a bit! Therefore, I have bribed, threatened, cajoled and blackmailed several officials into allowing me to dump a metaphorical pound of cajun into the mix."

Two men exited the tent with the scrolls in it, carrying a large wooden chest between them. The set it down on the ground in front of Anko.

"See this?" she crowed, hauling the lid open. "This is a box with five hundred prepared exploding tags inside. Points will be added to your final score for creative usage, while points will be deducted for collateral damage. Remember, the Forest of Death is an old-growth forest, and the trees and animals here are endangered! Also, they might endanger you, so that's two for two in my book."

She gave a winning smile, and Orochimaru wondered if this was what love felt like.

"What are you waiting for? Come and get 'em!"

There was a mad dash for the chest, as almost all of the genin teams rushed for the tenuous prize. A few held back, including his own and Team Yahiko, but most were quickly entangled in a melee on the grassy turf. There was a mad scramble for the tags, with every ounce of ninja cunning and force employed to ward off potential foes. Soon, the ninja were disengaging as two of the combatants were embroiled in a struggle over the last few tags. One of them performed the handseals for a fire jutsu...

One of the Ame genin had the presence of mind to summon a massive wall of earth over the combatants, just before the remaining tags exploded. There was a puff of smoke from within the dome, and then it collapsed, revealing a black scorch mark on the earth.

"Huh," Anko said, scratching the back of her head sheepishly. "I really thought that stunt would pan out a little better... I was hoping for more fatalities. Now, go get your scrolls! I'll see you in a few days, if you survive that long." Rather than teleporting, Anko sauntered lazily into the forest, with the crowd of genin still slightly stunned by the callousness of the two boys' deaths. Four of them slunk away, bereft of a teammate and virtually without hope, while the rest trudged into the tents like a crowd of the condemned.

**.:.**

"What's the plan?" a Grass kunoichi asked, rubbing her hands together earnestly.

"I say we hang back and—GLK!" the third Kusa ninja said, abruptly dying midsentence. Orochimaru pulled the dagger from his neck, then turned to the witness. She stared at him, wordless, until he cleaved her entire body in two with one stroke of the Kusanagi.

His Scroll of Earth safely tucked into his belt, Orochimaru took off into the forest at a pace that far outstripped that of his 'competition'. He headed directly for the place where he knew Anko Mitarashi to be, laughing deliriously as he bounded through the dangerous forest. He needed to carefully arrange the outcome of this test in order to put who he wanted in the last round, and that meant some tampering. Tampering with the results, with the order of the scrolls handed out (he'd ensured that Team Seven possessed a Scroll of Earth), and tampering with the proctor.

Anko's curse seal was effectively anchored to her chakra network, like a parasite under the skin. It was beyond even his abilities to mend the breach, but a master of fūinjutsu could probably undo his influence entirely. Sadly, she'd not had the benefit of an expert, and so the mark festered beneath a weak barrier. Now, he was going to do what he'd sworn to do all those years ago: create the ultimate vassal. Loyal to a fault, cunning, with the ability to draw on his own power, Anko had been meant to be a lieutenant in an army under his command. That is, until he discovered the curse seal's fatal flaw: its mortality rate.

Hopefully he could remedy that. It seemed that an individual's chance of surviving was tied to their level of chakra: the more chakra the target had, the more likely they were going to survive a sudden influx of sage chakra. Of course, if the introduction of the natural chakra was staggered and time-delayed, the body could slowly grow accustomed to the larger pool of chakra. He hoped.

Orochimaru located Anko twenty minutes later, her curse seal leaking a distinct amount of his own chakra that he could trace. He dropped into the clearing just behind her, forcing his much-maligned body to start entering a partial sage mode.

"Proctor?" he asked softly, allowing his host's original voice to overshadow his own.

"Kid?" the purple-haired kunoichi muttered incredulously. "But the exam started half an hour ago! How the hell'd you get here so fast? And where's your team?"

"They're... they're dead," 'Shiore' said, his lower lip quivering. "A pale man with a longsword killed them. I- I think it was poisoned!"

Anko stared at him. _'Orochimaru is here?'_ she thought to herself, disbelievingly. "Was he tall? Did he have long, black hair? Did you see his earrings?"

"They were shaped like tomoe," the ersatz Kusa genin confirmed. "Why? Is that a bad thing?"

"How the hell did you escape?!" Anko demanded, reaching into her pocket to take out a radio. In response, he threw a senbon into her hand, striking a nerve and temporarily stiffening the muscle to the point of uselessness.

"I didn't, missus," he said, grinning widely. "Orochimaru got me too!"

In an instant, Anko's face went carefully blank, just as Orochimaru's reverted to that of the sannin.

"My dear student, today is a glorious day!" Orochimaru declared. "Today is the day that you become what you were _meant_ to be!"

"I am a shinobi of Konoha," Anko declared quietly. "Not even you could change that."

"You are right, but that will change. You see, your disuse of the curse seal has cut out my control. Without that temptation, you could lie to yourself. Say you were a good little kunoichi, even when they spat on you and called you a traitor's whore. They were half right: you _are_ a whore."

"What are you here for?" Anko breathed.

"That's not your concern, dear Anko," Orochimaru said carelessly. "Instead, you should worry more about whether you can survive the next couple of hours. I assure you, they will not be pleasant, but in the end you'll thank me. Of that, you can be sure."

She forced her hands to cooperate, making the beginnings of a seal that would cause a chain reaction of traps to go off. Unfortunately, Orochimaru was much faster than her, and before she could blink he was biting into her neck.

_'Not again!'_ she despaired, before a flare of intolerable pain shot through her curse mark.

**.:.**

In varying states of anguish and depression, Team Eight walked home. Kiba stared straight ahead dully, but his faithful companion was not so forgiving. Akamaru barked and nipped at Hinata's heels, growling and circling her in an attempt to make her feel uncomfortable and leave. Shino moved at a sloth's pace, his footsteps slowing until he came to a dead stop in the middle of the street.

"Don't make a scene," Kiba hissed, grabbing the Aburame by the collar and pulling him forward. Shino remained where he was, using his deceptive weight and taijutsu prowess to shrug off Kiba's force.

"I am perturbed," he said quietly. "This is because I saw a... a friend in the examination room. I have not seen him in nearly six years. He vanished without a trace a month after we enrolled in the Academy. You can see why this might upset me."

Hinata stopped too. "Who was it?" she asked softly.

"I thought..." Shino started. He swallowed, and Kiba and Hinata knew that this was serious. "I thought I saw Torune."

"Who's that?" Kiba asked, letting go of Shino's jacket.

"He was an Aburame," Shino said mechanically. "He had a different species of insect cultivated in him. One he inherited from his father. They were dangerous and uncontrollable, and so Torune wore much heavier clothing than our brethren. We lived together for some time, and I came to regard him as a brother. Then, one day, he disappeared. I have kept a small culture of his insects alive, but that is all I have of him."

Hinata knew that all Aburame looked alike, in the carbon-copy fashion that all clans had, and that this Torune probably wore dark glasses and heavy clothes just like his kin. She thought she might have seen someone with that description taking the test, but if so she apparently hadn't found him interesting enough. Whatever method he'd used to cheat, it was generic enough that it couldn't identify him as Shino's relative.

"I'm sorry, but I don't remember seeing someone like that," she apologized. "He might have been there, but I didn't have the time to look at all of the other genin."

"Nah, just Naruto," Kiba guffawed. "Seriously, I saw you staring at him near the end. Right before he stood up, you were gonna offer him your answers, weren't you? Man, I wish _I_ could'a thought of that strategy."

Hinata blushed heavily. Sometimes, she didn't give Kiba enough credit. Just because he was a loudmouth and incredibly aggravating didn't mean he wasn't perceptive. He _was_ a ninja, after all.

"If I may ask, why did you opt out of answering the tenth question?" Shino asked abruptly. "The speed at which the second exam began as we left was such that it is highly unlikely the proctor was able to mark all of the tests. This leads me to believe that our answers to the questions were less relevant than how we got them; a full mark would have been to fill out the entire page. Had we stayed, we would have almost certainly advanced."

"I-I was worried a-about you and Kiba," Hinata mumbled embarrassedly. "If we were stuck as genin forever, w-we wouldn't be able to become clan heads. Hanabi a-and Hana would replace us, and _you_ w-wouldn't have anyone. I c-couldn't take that r-risk. I'm sorry."

Kiba sighed. "Normally, I'd be kinda pissed at you, but for now I'm just gonna go home. Tell sensei I'll be coming tomorrow." He and Akamaru turned and walked away, one slouching and the other bouncing with unrefined energy.

Shino and Hinata walked some more, until they reached the point where they parted ways. Shino stared at Hinata for a while, then turned and walked up the street. Hinata watched him leave her sadly, then went her own way.

Five minutes later, she was blindsided by a tremendous strike to the back of the head. The blunt weapon instantly rendered her unconscious, though a pair of hands quickly grasped her under her arms to keep her from hitting the ground. This time, as the faceless assailant dragged her away, Hiashi wasn't there to save her.

**.:.**

Gaara watched impassively as Temari released the messenger bird into the treeline. Elsewhere in the forest, an explosive tag went off, followed by two or three more. It seemed that their strength varied, though someone versed in the fūinjutsu used in their creation could tell which was which. Kankurō was eagerly arming the Crow with tags, rigging the entire puppet with detachable explosives.

"We have orders to take out a particular team," she said, her voice sounding ragged and worn. "A group of Konoha shinobi."

Gaara raised one thin eyebrow. "No survivors?"

"It isn't specified, but since deaths are expected in this tournament, I say they probably expect it from us."

Temari sat down heavily, taking out her fan and leaning on it. This whole plan was bullshit, in her opinion. There was no way that two hundred shinobi could topple a hidden village, especially one as stable and powerful as Konoha. Her father was an idiot of the highest grade for taking he word of a madman, and Baki was just as bad. The Sand Siblings were divided on the issue, though Gaara's opinion always followed the trend of bloodshed.

"Where are they?" Kankurō asked blearily, referring to the Konoha team they were supposed to incapacitate.

"Here," said Gaara. Instantly, his older siblings looked up, just as their targets jumped out of the bushes: a purple boy, a scarecrow with blades for limbs, and a black-and-white tiger that seemed to be made of ink and shadow. Readying his sand, Gaara screamed a war cry, and the battle began.


	7. Judge, Jury and Executioner

**Chapter 7: Judge, Jury and Executioner**

* * *

The purple boy dodged around Gaara's sand attack with remarkable speed, pushing off a tree trunk to avoid Shukaku's deadly embrace. The ink tiger skulked around the one-man army, looking for the opening to attack Temari or Kankurō. In response, Temari lowered her war fan and pretended to watch the scarecrow figure. As soon as the tiger pounced, she opened her fan directly to the second stage and whipped it upwards. The sudden blast of air knocked it back into a tree, where it disintegrated on impact.

Kankurō's Crow puppet flew towards the scarecrow, its octopus array of limbs splaying to cover the puppeteer from ranged attacks. Long knives shot out of the puppet's wrist, and with a twist of a finger Crow slashed mercilessly into the doll's body.

"I didn't know there were puppeteers in Konoha," said Kankurō, maneuvering Crow to block one of the doll's attacks. The blade snapped off in Crow's fingers, and Kankurō realized that the scarecrow's limbs were actually sickles, crudely attached to a stuffed torso. The legs were a bit longer, probably hoes or scythes, and its forehead bore the kanji for 'curse'.

"You got a really shitty puppet, man," Kankurō taunted. He wiggled his wrists, and Crow efficiently dismembered the scarecrow. For good measure, he opened the upper right chamber for smoke bombs, which he'd modified to charge and deploy explosive tags, and dropped one into the fallen puppet for good measure.

Temari, meanwhile, was darting through the underbrush at lightning speeds, searching for the creator of the ink tiger. She debated using the third portion of her fan, if only to summon Kamatari to help on the hunt, but decided against it. The sickle weasel was useful to an extent, but he demanded a tribute after service. Temari wasn't in the mood to give him a back rub and pick the lice out of his fur, so unless she really had to the familiar would remain in his domain.

She almost tripped over the boy one the ground. His orange hair stood out in the dark forest, and his eyes were closed. He couldn't have been the other team's puppeteer or the creator of the ink tiger, but a quick search proved two things. One, he was well and truly out. Temari doubted she could wake him up even with the roaring bang of an explosive tag, and there was a loud rumble coming from nearby as Gaara fought the strangely coloured ninja. Two, he had a scroll tucked into some kind of makeshift holster made of fabric on his thigh. After taking it, she checked it... and sure enough, it was a Scroll of Earth, the complement to the Sand Siblings' Scroll of Heaven. Tentatively, she pulled it out of the cloth. Almost as an afterthought, she replaced it with an explosive tag.

**.:.**

Anko was shaking on the ground, pain wracking her body. There was a faint white tinge travelling across her skin from the curse seal on her neck, a physical representation of the natural chakra the juinjutsu automatically harvested and funnelled into the user's chakra network. Previous versions of the curse seal were oriented around two tiers: one that increased the user's physical strength and alacrity at the cost of some higher cognitive functions, and another that degenerated their mental acuity severely, but brought around a transformation similar to a uncontrolled sage mode. Kimimaro's, for instance, gave him a tail and an exoskeleton, as well as increasing his size greatly. In addition to giving him a vaguely reptilian look, the extra bone made manipulating his osteoblasts easier, allowing the man to plough through entire platoons with ease. In fact, Orochimaru suspected that Kimimaro at his height would have given Minato Namikaze a run for his money.

This version of the curse seal was a bit more versatile. Rather than relying on a designated transformation for every individual (Kidōmaru liked to joke about that: "Not every boss has a second stage!"), his new design used sage chakra in one of several ways. Depending on the strengths of the user, it could add to the scope and power of ninjutsu attacks, increase speed and strength to inhuman levels, and fortify the yin chakra of a genjutsu to the point that it was nearly impossible to break. The uses of sage chakra were limitless, according to Jiraiya, and Orochimaru was inclined to take his word for it. Once, he'd seen Jiraiya miss with an attack at point-blank range, only for the other shinobi to die as if he'd been hit anyways. Afterwards, the Toad Hermit had attributed it to senjutsu.

Here, Anko was a test subject. Her first recovery from the application of the juinjutsu was only a few minutes, so here she might well be done in less than a day. Then, he could test the seal's effectiveness. Kabuto had helped him design an effective battery of examinations to perform, including the search potential side-effects and unpredicted deviations from the projected model. If it wasn't quite what they were looking for, there were a dozen ways he could correct the formula on the fly. When the curse seal finally worked the way he wanted it to, he'd be _ready_.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu," he said, baring his tattoo and summoning a snake the size of a small tree. The serpent obediently cracked its jaws wide, swallowing Anko whole with only the slightest grimace of discomfort at not being allowed to digest her. Instead, using the kusanagi technique that allowed the sword to be everywhere and nowhere, he banished her to... somewhere.

First order of business complete, Orochimaru turned and broke into a sprint in yet another direction, this time with the intent to test Team Kakashi. What he knew of the team thus far was mostly disparaging: they were united only in the most dire of circumstances, but showed the propensity to turn on each other for innocuous reasons even in the midst of serious business. The pink-haired girl, memorable only for her shade of hair and for actually having parents (he spared a moment to sarcastically thank Kizashi for lending him his identity), was only passable in anything that didn't involve some level of deduction or memorization. The other two, who should have been powerhouses thanks to the gifts given to them at birth, were instead limited by the blinders of their upbringing._  
_

After a long internal debate, Orochimaru decided that he wanted neither of them as a vessel. Sasuke in particular had held a great deal of promise. The sharingan in the right hands were not weapons to be underestimated, as aptly demonstrated by Kakashi Hatake and Danzō Shimura. Sasuke had the potential to be living artillery, delivering wide-bore illusions and ensnaring entire armies with their hypnotic powers. The ability of the sharingan to memorize and perfectly repeat any physical motion or chakra trick was useful for those wishing to gather a repertoire of parlour tricks, but combat jutsu could only be used reliably if learned the hard way. It took a true genius to actually copy an arsenal, but there were a few prodigies who availed themselves of sharingan to do just that: Itachi, Shisui and Kakashi, to name some contemporaries.

In contrast, Naruto was a more subtle option. As an Uzumaki, he was naturally much more energetic than the average human, and a regular Uzumaki could live for centuries. Unfortunately, being a jinchūriki drastically shortened one's lifespan, meaning that Naruto as he was would only live out a normal lifespan. As a host, he would definitely last for at least a decade, though the Kyūbi represented a significant barrier to that. As a Namikaze, of which Orochimaru was certain he was, Naruto availed himself of only one advantage: a greater chance of being accepted by the people of Konoha. Minimal as it was, he could understand why Hiruzen opted to name him Uzumaki: the minute Iwa learned the Yellow Flash had a son, his days were numbered.

In all, they were both poor candidates. Sasuke was infinitely more valuable as breeding stock for the sharingan. With both parents possessing the dōjutsu, and an older brother famous for its mastery, he represented the possibility of impregnating hundreds of women, with the aim of repopulating the world with sharingan users. (Mikoto would be so proud of her children: murderous psychopaths, and one was a closet nymphomanic). Naruto had a much more tangible obstacle preventing his assimilation, namely the kitsune. Even if the Kyūbi were to be extracted, it was doubtful he would survive the experience for longer than a few days. The process had killed Kushina in a fairly short period of time, and Mito had only lived for long enough to apologize to her great-granddaughter before dying.

Therefore, he would find another vessel. Someone worthy of the honour, yet unafraid of the repercussions. Orochimaru was sure he could find someone, but that someone was not on Team Seven. Sakura didn't qualify, primarily because she was average in nearly every way, but also because Orochimaru disliked being a girl. The one time he'd chosen to do so, it had been in a moment of desperation, and he regretted it every waking moment for three entire years. Tsunade's behaviour as a genin seemed somewhat justifiable, now...

**.:.**

Sai observed the battlefield with a bird's-eye view. Kankurō was now helping Gaara fend off Torune, a rare display of teamwork according to his information. The Sand Siblings were invariably described as individual fighters, their strengths complemented by separating and compartmentalizing the enemy into managable divisions. An amateur strategist himself, Sai was painfully aware that their current method of attack left the Root team in a weaker position.

"Chōjū Giga," he intoned, pulling a prepared sheet of paper out of his notebook. The beautifully artistic illustration of a nest of mice peeled away from the paper, dropping from the ink bird to the treeline and scurrying off in the Forest of Death. He needed to find Fū and ascertain whether his consciousness was still trapped in the smoking remains of the scarecrow. Torune had training in helping the Yamanaka recover, but he was currently fighting for his life.

Meanwhile, Kankurō was faced with the unsettling discovery that his puppet had turned against him. As soon as Crow obliterated the doll, it had abruptly severed its chakra threads to him of its own accord, a feat by all rights that should have been impossible. It turned to him, moving with an otherworldly intelligence in its eyes, and attacked.

"Gaara!" Kankurō shouted, dodging around an exploratory strike by his formerly dependable puppet. "HEY, GAARA!"

Gaara, meanwhile, was discovering that Torune was a trickier opponent than he'd suspected. The purple coating of his skin was actually an intricate hive of insects, marking him as an Aburame. Every time he touched the sand, it left a tiny trace of the insects on the particles, too small for him to crush but large enough to kill him if he made a mistake. Neither of them was going to tire out in the foreseeable future, but Gaara had a significant advantage over him: he could multitask.

"What?" the redhead ground out, turning his head slightly without otherwise moving.

"Can you—" Kankurō swore foully and leapt over another attack from Crow. "Can you hold my puppet still?"

A tendril of sand snaked over and siezed the puppet, leaking into its myriad joints and jamming the mechanisms that kept it mobile. Crow froze, its beady black eyes blazing with fury. The Shinten Kugutsu Juin technique, a variation on the Yamanaka's Shintenshin technique, had a significant flaw: the user's conscience was trapped in a seal. Fū could release it and return to his own body, but that would mean leaving part of his chakra in the seal on Crow. Not only would this deprive him of much of his strength, it would rearm Kankurō with his puppet.

Making a quick decision, Fū relinquished his hold over the puppet, abandoning his attempts to ensnare the puppeteer in his technique, and returned to his body. He brushed the ink mice off, hopefully informing Sai that he was alive, and scanned the forest for the direction the battle had moved.

Meanwhile, Temari had had enough. Growling something incomprehensible, she snapped her fan open to the third and final stage, summoning Kamatari. The sickle weasel hit the ground running, instinctively knowing his mistress' will and obeying without question. As he ran off through the undergrowth, his comically large _kama_ trailing behind him, Temari clambered up a nearby tree. Something about the noise in the forest had been irking her, and now she knew what it was: the sound of a bird in flight, magnified until it sounded like the _whoosh_ of a tornado in Training Ground Twelve.

At first, she assumed it was one of the mutant birds that the Forest of Death produced, a massive raptor or a gargantuan vulture. However, the stark black and white colouring lead her to believe it was created by the same ninja who birthed the ink tiger. Whoever he was, he was asking for it from her. He was even riding a massive pidgeon.

"Kamaitachi no jutsu!" she howled, swinging her fan forward in a great arc. Manipulating the wind for distance rather than power, the air blades struck home and diced the ink bird into vapour trails. From far away, she saw the body of Sai falling through the air, frantically drawing a new bird, but it was too late. Kamatari launched himself into the air underneath him, and in seconds Sai was overwhelmed. The great curves blade cut the Root shinobi into bloody chunks, and as his bloody remains hit the ground, Kamatari was already gone.

**.:.**

Gaara was truly tiring of this fight. Mother was silent, for once, sensing that Torune was not an opponent to be taken lightly. He wondered idly if she would reward him for being so strong, but he doubted it. Mother only let him control the sand when she was scared, and when Mother was scared she usually emerged feeling angry rather than grateful.

Kankurō joined in, unsheathing a pair of kunai and binding them to his fingers with chakra threads. He unleashed them on the unsuspecting Torune, using the threads as a substitute for ninja wire and forcing the Root agent to block the pervasive sand and a pair of wielder-less weapons at the same time. He retaliated by bringing his hands together and forming an amorphous purple ball.

"Dokujin no jutsu," he said, blowing the cloud of venomous insects towards Gaara. The sand contracted into a tight ball, protecting him from being infected, but Kankurō was forced to retreat rapidly from the oncoming disaster. Whatever other traits the microscopic parasites had, flight wasn't one of them. A decent gale would be enough to blow them all away, but Torune seemed to have this attack down to a science. In a few seconds, they would be on him.

Temari flicked her fan back to the second star and swung again, this time blowing the deadly purple cloud away from her brothers. Torune stopped, falling away to a safe distance as a third opponent emerged.

Elsewhere in the forest, exploding tags continued to go off, though admittedly less frequently.

"Where's the other puppeteer?" Kankurō growled, reaching for another pair of knives.

"My team has no puppet user," Torune said simply, his voice unusually flat. "You were not supposed to be so difficult to kill, Gaara of the Sand. My supervisor said that your sand was much slower and more exploitable."

"Nah, if we're talking about exploitable techniques, then let's talk about yours," Kankurō said pleasantly. "See, with all that purple shit floating around like smoke, someone could just throw any attacks they want through it, and you'd never see them coming. Like, say, six incendiary tags..."

Torune's face showed panic for just an instant, before the explosive tags that Kankurō had affixed to his legs and neck with chakra threads exploded. None of the Sand Siblings even blinked.

"Are there not two others?" Gaara asked pensively, forcing his sand to vibrate vigorously to kill the insects still clinging to it.

There was another explosion, this one much closer to them than the others. Temari took out a Scroll of Earth.

"I took care of it," she said innocently.

* * *

**I realized later on that the title of this chapter is a bit too cryptic. The judge is Gaara, the jury is Kankurō and the executioner is Temari. Also, I think it's a quote from _Judge Dredd_. Yeah, that too.**

**The team from Root is significantly less powerful than they are in the manga, but that's because they don't appear in part one. Danzō's training regimen has made them emotionless soldiers and unusually talented ninja, but they're still barely teenagers. I'd say they're on par with Neji (Torune) and Sasuke (Sai and Fū) when it comes to combat.**

**EDIT: Re-posts are embarrasing. My thanks for pointing it out.**


	8. Strategy Is Key

**Chapter 8: Strategy Is Key**

* * *

In the tower at the centre of the forest, there was complete chaos. Technicians and ANBU were scurrying around the building, trying to locate Anko Mitarashi on the monitors and in the woods. It was unanimously agreed to that she hadn't simply fallen prey to the monstrous denizens of the Forest of Death, which left only a few possibilities. This was the first time in nearly a decade that she had been entrusted with anything particularly important outside of a mission, and people were eagerly joining in, either to prove her innocence or revel in her guilt.

"Do we have any leads?" snapped Agent Boar, the captain of the security squad.

"She was last seen in sector 6F," one of the technicians said, examining a data readout with concern. "There was a burst of interference that knocked all of our cameras offline, and the team dispatched to the area hasn't found her yet. The only explanation we have so far is that team from Grass."

"Yeah, two Kusa genin were found at their entrance, both dead," said another man. "The third member of their team wasn't there, but we have footage of him in the forest. We're checking their sensei's documentation right now, but so far it seems legit."

The door burst open, and an ANBU ninja with a toad mask rushed into the room. "Danzō Shimura's genin team is dead," he said tonelessly.

"_What?_" the technicians chorused.

"He assigned them to kill the Kazekage's children, did he not?" Agent Boar said.

"How do you know that, captain?" Agent Toad asked.

"I guessed. They were too much for those little Root bastards, eh?"

"Sir, Agent Torune and Agent Fū were both killed by explosive tags."

"Untreated third-degree burns and blood loss?"

"Dismemberment, actually. It seems one of them was covered in half a dozen tags, and the other was hit by one with an unusually high concentration of chakra."

"It seems letting Mitarashi organize the event was a mistake," Agent Boar said icily. "Who the hell let her hand out high explosives in such a lethal test?"

"The writeup says they were meant to be duds," his subordinate remarked. "It was supposed to be a psychological component, so either the manufacturer is incompetent or Mitarashi was lying."

"Team Seven has reached the tower!" one of the technicians declared. "Naruto Uzumaki appears to have lost the use of his left arm and taken some senbon wounds, and Sakura Haruno has some nasty burns on her upper torso. We need a medical team, stat!"

Turning away from the hubbub of Anko's subordinates, Agent Boar sat down heavily in a wicker chair. "Just... keep looking," he grunted. "The exams will move on without her, but anyone who can abduct a tokubetsu jōnin without a fight needs to located and terminated. I will stay in contact with Lord Sarutobi from here. You have three more days until the knowledge of her disappearance becomes public."

"Yessir," said Agent Toad, leaving to continue the search.

**.:.**

Sarutobi observed the successful genin appreciatively. There were only a few deaths in the second test, most notably an Ame genin on Team Shigure and the entirety of Team Sai. Whatever Danzō had wanted by entering them in the test, he likely hadn't obtained it. He was pleased to see that Naruto had made it through in one piece, and that he had regained the use of his dislocated arm. Even better, his team was progressing nicely. All of them stood a chance of becoming chūnin, and he was certain now that they deserved to be here.

There were six genin teams present. Team Kabuto, Team Yahiko, Team Kidōmaru, Team Gai, Team Kakashi and the Sand Siblings. That was eighteen genin total, which meant having a preliminary match. If there were no preemptive forfeits or ties, that would cut their numbers down to nine, though he had hoped for only six or so to actually move on.

"I must congratulate all of you for making it this far," he said, his voice carrying across the sandy floor of the arena. "Each of you has demonstrated intelligence, cunning, teamwork and skill befitting a shinobi of chūnin rank. For those of who have not met me, I am Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. You have all had ample time to rest and recuperate in this tower, but now you face a third challenge. In one month's time, there will be a great tournament held in Konoha, where you will test your mettle and attempt to prove to the Kage of Konoha and Suna, and the Head Jōnin of Hidden Grass, Sound, Waterfall and Rain that you are worthy of a promotion."

He watched their faces carefully. Some showed excitement, others anxiety, and a few displayed boredom or disinterest.

"Before then," he went on, "there will be a preliminary match to further decrease the number of combatants in the final round. You will fight until you or your opponent can fight no more. Prepare yourselves, for the next trial is _here and now_!"

Another shinobi stood up and advanced from the wall. His typical method of camouflage was to blend in with a crowd, but a shadow on a sandstone wall worked just as well. He came forward, looking somewhat miserable.

"I am the proctor for the third exam, Hayate Gekkō," he said quietly. "You'll have to excuse me, as I'm a little bit sick right now. Before we begin, anyone who doesn't feel they can participate fully in this next event can back out. Would anybody like to take this opportunity?"

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," said Kabuto. "I'm still rather sore from the forest, and I don't think I can perform well enough to win my match. I'd appreciate it if you took my name out."

Hayate eyed the hale-looking shinobi, then shrugged. "Kabuto Yakushi," he said to himself, "is jumping ship yet again. If Anko were still around, I'd owe her more than a few drinks."

"Do we have to—?" Misumi started to say.

"No," Hayate replied. "This is the tournament round, and you are no longer a team. That being said, the preliminaries will not pair you with another member of your team, due to the conflict of interest and the intimate knowledge of one another's skills that has developed. If nobody else is going to back down, we have an uneven number of competitors. The first bye goes to..."

A large screen flickered to life behind him, dull green and blank. After a tense moment, the name 'Zaku Abumi' appeared in stark white letters. Following that, the first match appeared.

"Would everyone leave the arena except for Kin Tsuchi and Rock Lee?" Hayate asked, coughing softly. While the rest of the genin filed away, the names two readied themselves in the ring. Rock Lee looked as boisterous as ever, despite nearly losing Tenten to a giant leech the day before, while Kin Tsuchi looked confident and controlled.

They approached each other in the centre of the ring and bowed, one earnestly and the other sardonically. In fact, Lee stepped forward and shook her hand, Kin looking somewhat reluctant.

"Begin," Hayate said, before erupting into a hacking cough.

"I know little of you or your teammates, save for that you do not specialize in taijutsu," Lee said, "but I am sure that you will make a formidable opponent."

"Yeah. Whatever."

The first few seconds of the match were agonizingly tense. Then, with a yell, Lee rushed forward and attempted to take Kin's head off with a flying roundhouse kick. Kin warded the strike off with a volley of perfectly aimed senbon. Without having to move, she avoided the attack as Lee was forced to twist out of the way to protect his shin. Landing behind her, he readied another attack, only for Kin to throw even more needles from her seemingly endless supply to deflect him.

"I don't understand," Sakura muttered, up in the stands. "Kin is a long range fighter, and Lee isn't fast enough to close the gap. Why does he keep trying to fight her in melee?"

"Because Lee can't use ninjutsu," Neji answered shortly. "Guy's brutal training regimen is the only reason he succeeds as a shinobi."

"But why not use thrown weapons?" Sakura argued. "He should be able to distract her with kunai before trying to move in. Trying to dodge senbon from someone who clearly knows what they're doing is nuts!"

"The Might Guy school of fighting discourages throwing weapons, because it decreases your arsenal or your Youth or some shit," Tenten said sourly. "Lee agrees, because Lee always agrees, and I don't think he has much more than a kunai on him right now."

"He's toast," Naruto agreed, as Lee sustained another senbon to the abdomen after another failed attack.

"Not necessarily!" Guy protested. "Lee may only have taijutsu, but he has plenty more tricks up his sleeve!"

"Does he?" Kidōmaru said slyly. "It seems to me that our students are boss mobs, rather than player characters."

"I don't follow," complained Naruto. "What's a 'mob'?"

"They have a limited skillset," the spider summoner said, ignoring Naruto's question. "When the hero comes along, Kin and Lee are defeated because their opponent doesn't _need _better taijutsu, or better senbon skills. They just need a clever strategy and some decent ability in a different area. Genjutsu, say. But no matter how many tricks Lee or Kin have up their sleeves, they'll be crushed if they don't diversify."

"LEE! TAKE YOUR LEG WEIGHTS OFF!" Gai shouted, evidently tiring of having his training methods insulted.

"BUT SENSEI, YOU SAID—"

"YOU MAY DO SO JUST THIS ONCE! I WILL ALLOW IT!"

"Prepare to witness my true potential!" Lee announced to Kin, jumping back roughly fifty feet onto the outstretched fingertips of a sunken colossus. He ripped his legs weights off, threw them over the edge... and promptly fell after them, tipping drunkenly from his aerial perch. Just before the weights hit the ground, Guy launched himself from the stands and intercepted his student, clinging to the wall as twin fountains of dust were kicked up by the falling bands.

The entire crowd gaped at Kin, who smugly adjusted her Oto uniform.

"Poison," she explained. "It was acting far too slowly, even after I scratched him when he shook my hand, so taking those leg weights off much have drastically increased his circulation. With so much poison already in his blood, it was only a matter of time before his fortitude gave out."

Hayate coughed again. "Winner: Kin Tsuchi."

**.:.**

The next match was Sakura Haruno versus Oboro, one of Yahiko's genin. The Ame ninja was mostly sealed inside a hazmat suit, like his other two teammates, and his expression was hidden behind a rebreather. In contrast, Sakura looked open and vulnerable. Parts of her body were still red and blistered from the heat of Shigure's explosive tag trap, and she looked scared and nervous. As soon as the proctor call the match to a start, the two of them immediately leapt away from one another. Sakura watched her opponent carefully as he formed the dog and tiger seals.

A few dozen clones shimmered into existence. All of them looked real enough, and a quick try at dispelling genjutsu told her that they were made of something physical. Emboldened by superiority in numbers, Oboro's clones swarmed Sakura. The pink-haired kunoichi took out a knife and started slashing through the clones, but none of them reacted at all. Each slice simply slid through their bodies, like an arrow through smoke.

"They're made of mist," Sasuke said, his sharingan revolving. He formed the two hand seals, and suddenly a copy of himself stood at the other end of the platform.

"That they are, which means they can't be dispelled," Yahiko said proudly. "Oboro worked quite hard to master the Haze Clone technique, because it gives him a tactical advantage over any non-wind user."

"Sakura seems to be doing just fine," Tenten pointed out. "There's no way Oboro can just attack her like that; sooner or later, she'll find the right one. Even if he blocks, she'll have found the real one."

Sakura, meanwhile, was forming a strategy of her own. Every time the clones were interrupted by something, they wavered. She could only try to attack one clone at a time, but Oboro's control over the technique was finite. He could only make one of them move at a time, probably including himself. That meant a whole lot of easy targets for what she planned to do.

Feeling foolish for dodging the intangible strike of one of the clones, Sakura used the motion to bend over and scoop up a handful of the arena floor. Loose sand and dirt swirling in her palm, she threw the dust outwards, evenly coating the haze clones. All of them began to shiver, the intrusion disrupting Oboro's control of the technique.

"Where's the real one?" Naruto shrieked, leaning over the railing and scanning the fight.

"Mm, she's got her work cut out for her," Kakashi remarked mysteriously.

Behind her, the earth split noiselessly in two, the real Oboro emerging with a victorious gleam in his eyes. He lunged forward, bare hands grasping for her throat, but Sakura was almost as fast. She spun around, allowing him to start the choke but slapping one palm firmly against his chest. The salvaged explosive tag ignited, blasting the two of them apart. Neither stood up.

"This match is a tie," Hayate said blandly, suppressing his urge to cough. "Medics!"

**.:.**

"Temari versus Dosu Kinuta!"

The two genin took the stage, their expressions unreadable as Hayate called a start to the match. Like all long-range fighters, both immediately jumped back to gain space for their respective attacks. Dosu readied his Melody Arm, and Temari flicked her fan open.

The Kyōmeisen relied on vibrations produced in his arm, redirected by chakra to produce deforming effects, such as shattering objects or destabilizing an opponent's inner ear. That was his favourite trick, as the nausea allowed him to fight with impunity, not having to worry about ranged attacks. This girl, unfortunately, could manipulate air. Sound didn't necessarily have to travel through a still medium, but a gale of the strength Temari could produce would seriously impede his aim and power.

Watching her carefully, Dosu armed himself with a tantō and began moving it in a standard guard position, making sure to keep his movements innocent enough that Temari wouldn't notice what he was doing. Slowly, moving closer to her, he began to disrupt her balance.

Temari waited for Dosu to get a bit closer, then unleashed her fan. "Kamaitachi no jutsu!" she shouted, forcing Dosu to back up quite a bit. Nevertheless, as scythes of wind began to gouge holes in the arena, she was startled to find that her aim was off. The greatest damage had been done to the wall a few feet to Dosu's left.

Scowling, she tried again. The war fan rippled as a massive blast of air hit true, knocking Dosu to the ground and forcing him to curl up in the fetal position to avoid being diced by the sharp winds. Whatever had impeded her aim, it was gone now. She smiled knowingly.

Dosu stood up shakily, forcing his body to comply. He was less hurt than rattled, adrenaline making rational decisions difficult, but he remembered to start the echo drill once more to disorient Temari. The girl noticeably winced, putting the tip of her fan on the ground for support and sliding her feet out to stay standing.

That was her mistake. Dosu rushed forward, taking advantage of the fact that she'd disarmed herself to try and finish her off. Temari was too skinny for the Kyōmeisen to knock her out, so he'd go for a tantō through the gut. Simple, devastating, and not permanent if the medics got there fast enough. He jumped around the fan's edge and struck. The crowd held its breath as the tip of the sword...

... was nonchalantly deflected by Temari. Quickly and easily, the Kazekage's daughter dismantled Dosu's defence with taijutsu. The Oto gennin stumbled away from her, leaving him open for a solid punch to the gut that doubled him over. One more strike to the jaw and the match was over.

"Winner: Temari," said Hayate.

She turned to the crowd. "I figured out that he was using sound waves as a weapon to make me too dizzy to fight, based on the way he used that thing on his arm. That meant he was mucking with my inner ear, so I just used a fūton technique to create a vacuum around my ear. Then, I faked being affected to draw him. I was counting on him having poor taijutsu, but poor kenjutsu worked just as well with the element of surprise."

She left the stage, and the great screen began to randomize the next match.

* * *

**I decided not to show Team Seven versus Team Shigure, because so little of Shigure is shown at all. He uses senbon and a umbrella, and is murdered violently within two or three minutes of his introduction. Mostly, it's because their fight would've been more boring if I showed it instead of alluding to it.**

**Sarutobi's reference to Orochimaru as the Head Jōnin of Otogakure rather than Otokage is not a mistake. That's what his title should be, and as Hokage it's his job to discourage upstart hidden villages from getting too full of themselves.**

**Temari is significantly more powerful than in canon. Not only did beat Dosu with taijutsu, she can create a vacuum with wind release. There is a reason for this, beyond her being an important character. Dosu's final attack reckoned that she didn't have enough body fat to be defeated the way Chōji would have, especially with the tessenjutsu to back her up. Also stronger is Kin, who beat Rock Lee without really breaking a sweat. These changes keep rolling!**


	9. Strategy Is Always the First Casualty

**Chapter 9: Strategy Is Always the First Casualty**

* * *

"Naruto Uzumaki versus Tenten."

Tenten leapt from the balcony, gracefully landing two stories below and running to the centre of the arena. Conversely, when Naruto attempted to duplicate the feat, he landed on his head.

"I'm good, I'm good!" he hollered. "This floor is pretty soft!"

"You're fine because your head is as hard as a rock, yeah!" Zaku shouted.

"Good one," Kankurō snickered. A look from Gaara silenced him, drawing curious looks from some of the jōnin.

Naruto watched Tenten carefully. The Oriental girl was a year older than him and much taller, with a lean build made hard by endless training. Her clothes, which he suspected hadn't been changed since the second exam, had a massive stitch running from her left collar bone to the ribs in a quarter-circle. It looked like something had taken a bite out of her there, and if she had taken her blouse off it would have revealed an angry red welt on her left side. Her steel-grey eyes conveyed a bloody determination, something he was sure he could match.

Hayate gave Tenten a stern look. "You can back out if you aren't feeling well," he said, coughing lightly. "We don't encourage throwing your life away frivolously."

Tenten looked at him scathingly. "I am_ fine_," she insisted.

The proctor shrugged. "Okay, Miss. If both combatants have recovered, eh, _sufficiently_, the match begins... Now!"

Tenten, Naruto soon discovered, had weapons. More weapons than he knew how to use, more weapons than he even knew the name of. More weapons than he could even count, after shuriken made a few Naruto-shaped dents in the wall and floor. Gasping desperately, Naruto was given no respite as Tenten continued to draw weapons seemingly from nowhere and press him relentlessly.

Enough was enough. "Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" Naruto declared, summoning a dozen shadow clones to take the offensive. Grinning hugely, Tenten pulled out a pair of blacksmith's hammers and engaged all of them at once. Yelling war cries, the clones drew their own weapons and engaged, but it soon became apparent that fighting Tenten in close range was foolish.

The real Naruto circled the fight, watching appreciatively as Tenten disarmed and dismembered his clones. It seemed that she had no problem murderously destroying clones, with a speed that suggested she could have easily skewered him with shuriken earlier in the match. He shuddered as a clone's memories returned to him, culminating painfully in a cranial fracture. Those hammers were lethal in the right hands, and Tenten's hands were definitely the right ones.

"Yaaah!" he shouted, jumping back to avoid something with two blades and a chain connecting them as it spun towards his throat. Tenten was laughing hysterically now, her twin hammers cutting through shadow clones like a hot knife through butter. Naruto hastily made another legion of clones, but that just seemed to add to her energy.

"You've made a mistake, Naruto," she jeered, executing a complicated backflip that resulted in two clones impaling each other. With cries of agony they dispelled themselves, returning the feeling of a kunai in the gut to Naruto.

Even as it happened, Naruto could tell she was right. His clones were dying faster now and in more grisly ways, unable to block Tenten's crushing assault without sacrificing limbs and suffering broken bones. She was twirling faster now, deliberately confusing the clones and using them to block one another out. The bottleneck was so efficient that most of Naruto's copies were reduced to standing there uselessly, until Tenten got around to killing them.

Then, she made a mistake. One of the clones lunged in and managed to nick Tenten's thigh, to which she responded by decapitating it with the blunt head of a hammer. Naruto howled in pain at the memory, but something else the clone showed him was vitally important: she was _tired_. Tenten hid it well, but creeping twitches and lax defences were starting to cripple her. As if in response, Tenten pulled a spiked chain out of her apparently bottomless weapon pouch and used it to shred the remainder of Naruto's clones into smoke.

"You're running out of chakra," she remarked, rolling the chain up and stuffing it back in the pouch.

"I can outlast you, believe it," he countered. "All I have to do is pull out a thousand shadow clones and you've had it."

"Please," Tenten snorted. "A thousand copies of nothing is still nothing. I haven't even used my most powerful attack yet. If you try to make that many shadow clones, I can kill them all without even breaking a sweat."

"Care to find out?" Naruto asked magnanimously. One thousand shadow clones appeared in puffs of smoke around the arena, each carrying a kunai and wearing an expression of murderous fury. Again, space constricted their attack, but Naruto had prepared them for it. They came in organized spirals, bravely throwing their lives away to make Tenten swerve and dodge, creating opportunities even as their died on her blades.

Tenten, true to her word, used her most powerful attack. Two scrolls, full of one-handed weapons and ninja wire, were unfurled in a striking double helix as Tenten leapt into the air. "Sōshōryū!" she cried, and enough weapons to arm the Land of Iron's samurai army slammed into the ground. If shadow clones could bleed, the arena would have drowned in the blood of Naruto's experiment. He doubled over, grunting as the memories of nearly a thousand deaths at once put significant stress on his psyche.

"Ready to give up?" she said carelessly, dropping the spent scrolls to the ground and arming herself yet again, this time with a long-handled nagamaki sword. "Your shadow clones have such a drawback, don't they? Humans were only meant to die once, after all. Keep making them and I'll keep killing them, just until you pass out."

"Tajū Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" Naruto snarled, again surrounding Tenten with clones. This time, there were only a hundred or so, not enough to justify using the Sōshōryū again. She eagerly began to demolish the clones with her sword, outplaying them at every turn and dispatching the copies with simple blows.

Her sword slid into the thigh of yet another Naruto... and stuck there. The real Naruto, who had evidently replaced himself with a clone and joined the melee, stuck his tongue out at her.

"Surprise!" he shouted.

Tenten stared at him stupidly, until a clone smashed the handle of a fallen weapon into the back of her head. Tenten dropped like a stone, and suddenly all of the were attacking her barehanded, punching and kicking her body until—

"ENOUGH!" Kakashi roared, his killing intent even from the stands dispersing the shadow clones. Most of the remaining genin dropped to their knees, envisioning their own deaths at the Copy Ninja's hands.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki," said Hayate, returning to the scene. "For the rest of you, be forewarned that attacking a defeated opponent will result in our intervention. Naruto, the Hokage will speak to you about this during your recovery."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the word 'recovery', then looked down at his leg. The nagamaki was still jammed into his thigh, and the wide blade was spilling blood rapidly. As the standby medics rushed in, he fainted from blood loss.

**.:.**

"That was unusually violent of him," Neji said stonily. "It seems that fate has decreed him greater than Tenten, by the grace of his true duplications."

"The shadow clone technique is extremely dangerous, both for the user and his opponents," Kakashi agreed. "Myself and the Hokage have tried to tell him that, but I don't think he ever listened. That was the first time his clones died _en mass_. It probably hasn't done him any good."

"How does that technique work?" Temari asked carefully. "I've seen Konoha ninja fight, but Naruto is the only one who's ever used that ability. Why haven't you taught it to more people?"

"Naruto is a special case," Kakashi answered vaguely. "For most, shadow clones are considered kinjutsu due to the sheer chakra required to make them. I myself can only manage fifty at a time, and only on a good day. The potential for killing yourself or being subjected to the mental stress Tenten put on Naruto is great enough that the First Hokage taught it to a chosen few and sealed the technique away."

"Why has the Hokage given Naruto such a dangerous ability?" the Hyūga asked, curious in spite of himself. "Naruto does not seem tactically proficient enough to make full use of the ability. It was only through grievous harm that Tenten was overwhelmed, and had she been more alert he would have lost all the same. Temari is a keen strategist, and the ability to create shadow clones would do her a world of good."

Temari looked over at Neji. "Was that a compliment?" she asked skeptically. He chose to ignore her.

The screen blinked on, announcing the next match to be Kagari versus Sasuke Uchiha. Kagari, another of Yahiko's students, dressed much like Oboro. The only difference was the band of cloth obscuring his eyes. He ambled into the arena with casual slowness, his skill in navigating the staircase down and knowledge of the location of the centre of the field suggested that his sight wasn't obstructed at all.

Sasuke came in from the other side, and they bowed together. Hayate looked from one blank expression to the other, then shrugged. "I'd appreciate it if neither of you tried to kill the other," he confided. "Begin!"

"Oboro Bunshin no jutsu!" Kagari said, water vapour solidifying into hazmat-clad copies of the Ame genin. In response, Sasuke set his own stance.

"I've been paying attention, and with my sharingan, that makes all the difference. Oboro Bunshin no jutsu!"

Before long, two camps of intangible clones were circling each other. Every once in a while, the Kagari group would make a coordinated shot at the Sasuke group, but the Sasuke group simply remained perfectly unconcerned with their attacks.

"What's going on?" asked Zaku, peering closely at the battle.

"The mist clones are unable to hurt one another, as they are only mist," said Kagari's orange-haired sensei. "However, it is probable that the real ninja is hiding amongst the clones, waiting in ambush for the other to make a mistake. Kagari has mastered the Dochū Eigyo no jutsu, which allows for greater range of movement."

"Underground... fish technique?"

Meanwhile, all of the clones had stilled. It was an eerie tableau, like the battle had stopped completely with no victor. Time stood still. Then, all of Kagari's mist clones dissolved into water once more, followed shortly by Sasuke's.

Sasuke himself emerged from the ground, as if he were climbing a staircase hidden beneath the surface. His left hand was supporting Kagari's body, and his right was clutching at a bloodstain on his black shirt. He dropped Kagari to the ground and shuffled away.

"Winner: Sasuke Uchiha," a confused Hayate announced.

All eyes settled on Kakashi.

"Doton: Moguragakure no jutsu," he said by way of explanation. "Hiding underground is a mediocre strategy, but Oboro used it in his fight against Sakura. Sasuke watched it and figured that his teamates would do the same thing, and when Kagari created the mist clones he knew he was right. Kagari probably suspected that Sasuke had learned the Oboro Bunshin no jutsu with his sharingan, but the handseals for the Projection Fish technique are performed under a disguise. He didn't know Sasuke already had such an ability, and was unprepared for being attacked underground."

"He got at least one good shot in," Yahiko argued.

"He's also dead, or would be if this was real combat," said Kidōmaru, effectively bringing the conversation to a close.

**.:.**

"Gaara versus Misumi Tsurugi."

The match was over terrifyingly quickly. Misumi was a tall man with dark glasses and a veil covering half his face. By contrast, Gaara was half his height, half his age, and looked pathetically defenceless standing in front of him.

"Begin."

Karura's sand surged forward, grasping Misumi by the ankle and swirling up his leg. Misumi's serpentine body modification allowed him to back away, but the sand dug implacably into his ankle. The result was Misumi standing some ways away, with his leg comically stretched out and until it was covered by the sand. The entire room stared at them, astonished.

Misumi laughed nervously. "I, uh, forfeit?" he said nervously.

"Mother wants your blood," Gaara whispered. The sand, which had thus far benignly held him in place, burrowed into his softened flesh. Misumi screamed as his leg was torn apart, but Gaara wasn't done. The sand rushed upwards, engulfing his entire body and drowning out the cries for mercy as it filled his lungs and clogged his mouth.

"Sabaku Sōsō," he growled, sounding positively demonic, and both Temari and Kankurō shivered. The sand clamped down on Misumi's encased form, crushing the life out of him. Shukaku sucked up the blood of Kabuto's teammate, and with that he was gone.

"Uhh... is he dead?" asked Hayate, talking to no one in particular.

"Yeah, he's dead!" Kankurō shouted from the stands.

The proctor coughed. "In that case... Winner: Gaara!"

**.:.**

"The next match will be between Neji Hyūga and Yoroi Akadō."

Neji looked at Yoroi the same way a man might look at a bug. Yoroi, like Misumi, was in his late twenties, and Neji was only a year older than Team Kakashi. Nevertheless, a vast gulf of skill seperated the two of them. Neji settled into the basic Gentle Fist stance, and Yoroi backed away nervously.

"I forfeit," he said weakly.

"Fate has decreed that you will lose," said Neji. "If you wish to spare yourself the pain of having your tenketsu forced open, that is your right."

"What the hell was wrong with him?" Zaku muttered. "There's no way that dork could beat him."

Kakashi stifled a laugh at hearing Neji described as a dork. Kidōmaru took the question.

"They're both Konoha ninja," he said. "Yoroi knows that Neji has the byakugan, a dōjutsu that gives the user unparalleled sight and access to a fighting style called the Gentle Fist. Even among Hyūga, Neji is revered as a prodigy, levels above what Yoroi will ever achieve. The fight was over as soon as it was called."

"Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?" said Mubi. "That some people are born powerful, and others are born with nothing."

"It is the responsibility of those with power to protect the interests of those without," Yahiko said gravely. "Even those who have nothing can gain everything, given the right circumstances. Of the legendary sannin, only Tsunade had power and prestige. Jiraiya and Orochimaru were orphans."

"Having a great teacher is no guarantee of anything," Kin argued. "Kidōmaru-sensei is a high-level ninja, but look at us! He barely teaches us anything! I had to beg one of his teammates for genjutsu lessons, and she kidnapped me for two weeks!"

"_That's_ what happened?" Zaku exclaimed.

"She even made me pay afterwards, the bitch," Kin grumbled.

"Winner: Neji Hyūga!"

**.:.**

The final match between the remaining competitors was Kankurō versus Mubi, the third and final genin from Team Yahiko. In an interesting fashion statement, Mubi had opted to cover one eye and leave the other open, probably hoping to achieve an interesting medium between his teammates but in reality just neutering his depth perception. Kankurō had spent several days repairing Crow, scourging the puppet of the Curse Seal and Torune's nano-sized insects before deeming it safe for use again. The explosive tag launcher had lost its appeal, and so he calibrated the port to fire some more mundane projectiles.

"Begin!" Hayate declared, retreating to allow the fight to start.

Mubi didn't even try to conceal himself with mist clones, immediately allowing the earth to swallow him up. Kankurō snorted, turning around and walking towards the wall.

"Man, don't you Ame losers know how to fight?" he muttered. Mubi jumped out of the ground a few yards away, rushing Kankurō from behind. The Suna genin responded by stretching out a chakra thread, instantly bisecting the mist clone and rendering it useless.

Kankurō reached the wall, acting oblivious to Mubi's growing anxiety, and started to climb the wall with chakra. A few feet up, he took the wrapped bundle off his back and threw it to the ground.

More Mubi clones were emerging now, approaching the wall at random. Every time, Kankurō lashed out with perfect aim, wielding the puppeteer's trademark weapon as a whip to distinguish the clones from the original. Mubi, evidently running out of chakra, devised a new plan on the spot.

Whatever it might have been, Kankurō ensured that his downfall was swift. As soon as the Ame ninja emerged from the earth, Crow sprang to life. The puppet's arms and legs wound around Mubi, bringing him crashing to the ground. Something small, metal and poisonous shot out of Crow's mouth, piercing Mubi's skin and ending the match.

"Winner: Kankurō!" Hayate shouted, before dissolving into a coughing fit.

**.:.**

Hayate was forced to lie down and rest after the affair, leading to Might Guy offering to act as his replacement. The results were effective, if not ear-shattering.

"EIGHT OF OUR MOST YOUTHFUL STUDENTS HAVE REACHED THE MOST YOUTHFUL FIGHT IN KONOHA!" the green beast shouted. "IN ONE MONTH'S TIME, YOU WILL ASSEMBLE AND TEST THE FIRES OF YOUR YOUTH AGAINST ONE ANOTHER! ONLY THROUGH DEMONSTRATING THE RESULTS OF YOUR TRAINING WILL THE JUDGES SELECT YOU _TO BECOME CHŪNIN_!"

"How is he using genjutsu without hand seals?" Kin whispered to Neji, who shrugged. The background of a volcano spewing magma into the atmosphere was new, but strange things popped up behind Guy all the time. Even Lee was starting to do it, and he could barely use kawarimi without collapsing from overexertion.

Kakashi took his fingers out of his ears and picked up a small leather bag. "Please draw a number to determine your opponent in the first round."

As Naruto was absent, Kakashi drew a slip of paper marked '2' from the bag in his place. Sasuke drew a '6', and Neji an '8'. Kin and Zaku drew '3' and '5', respectively, and Temari, Kankurō and Gaara drew '7', '4' and '1'.

"FOR ONE MONTH YOU MUST FAN THE FIRES OF YOUR YOUTH! ONLY THEN WILL YOU BE PREPARED FOR THIS MOST YOUTHFUL COMPETITION!"

* * *

**So, now we have our finalists: Naruto, Sasuke, Temari, Kankurō, Gaara, Neji, Kin and Zaku. I included Team Yahiko (Team Oboro in canon) as a plot device, but now I regret it. The original plan was for Oboro to beat Sakura, but I realized that they're just too gimmicky. I didn't want to write the same fight scene four times, so I had Sakura use an explosive tag leading to a double knockout. I hope Kin is up to snuff as his replacement.**

**The finals aren't random. I just chose pairings I think I can write the best fights for.**

**Gaara vs. Neji**

**Naruto vs. Temari**

**Kin vs. Sasuke**

**Kankurō vs. Zaku**

**Naruto's fight with Tenten is meant to illustrate an important point: the propensity for characters to use shadow clones as 'strategy'. As in, 'you used your secret technique on my _shadow clone_', or 'you just killed my _shadow clone_'. That's not strategy, that's just a cop-out. Going in that direction, everybody should have some sort of solid clone technique, and then fights would happen between clones. Then, shadow clones would be a liability, because they transfer the memories of their death. So, shadow clones will be a minor element in this story.**


	10. Preparations

**Chapter 10: Preparations**

* * *

In his official capacity as the leader of Otogakure, Orochimaru had diplomatic lodging in Konoha. His village was new, to the point that Konoha had very little information and no spies in his network. As far as he knew, his hotel room was bugged and his every move watched. From the safety of a confidential letter, he had informed the Hokage that he couldn't come, but a representative of his would take his place on the panel of judges. That was why Kimimaro was currently resting in his bed.

His real base of operations was a quiet house in the suburbs, whose normal occupants he had bound and gagged in his basement. Orochimaru created a mud clone, and the two of them now masqueraded as Mebuki and Kizashi Haruno. He created a third mud clone, one who prepared the basement for future use and fed the Haruno family, while another managed his contacts in the ANBU.

The front door opened, and a man and woman badly disguised as Yoshino and Shikaku Nara walked in.

"The moon was full tonight, honey!" Tayuya said sultrily, letting go of Sakon's hand and waltzing in. Sakon let his own henge drop, revealing the androgynous leader of the Sound Four. He bowed deeply to Orochimaru, then went upstairs.

"I enjoyed the dawn," Orochimaru said distractedly. "Tayuya, go out and fetch me a whore."

Tayuya stopped abruptly and turned beet red. "I, uh, my Lord, if there's anything you desire, I can—"

"I desire to sacrifice a human soul to the death god," Orochimaru interrupted. "Unless you are offering yourself, I prefer to painfully kill those who do not contribute to society. Also, I believe Hiruzen outlawed prostitution some years ago, so we will be doing a civil service."

Tayuya's expression turned cruel. "Got it, Lord Orochimaru," she said nastily. Snapping her fingers, his pink-haired servant assumed the guise of a middle-aged man with a paunch and a lustful gleam in his eye. She left, chuckling nastily.

"Why is Jirōbō not here yet?" Orochimaru called upstairs.

"We had to leave him at the northern laboratory," Ukon replied, emerging briefly from his brother's body. "Jūgo had a fit, and we decided to have them intercept Kabuto on his mission after he calmed down."

The snake sannin considered that course of action. "Very well," he judged. "I applaud you for thinking for yourself. Some shinobi can't do that, it seems."

Sakon snickered.

**.:.**

Two days after the fiasco that was the third round, Might Guy called an emergency meeting of Team Guy. They met in their usual training ground, which was festooned with weapon racks and training dummies. Guy looked unusually solemn, which didn't reassure any of his students.

"Lee, can you tell me what you did wrong?" he asked seriously. Lee considered the question.

"I lost," he answered carefully.

"_Why_ did you lose?" Guy pressed. "When did Tsuchi first inject you with the poison?"

"When I shook her hand," Lee said, realizing where Guy was going with the topic. "I... should not have?"

"That was a real fight, meant to approximate war. You remained close enough to shake hands, yet you did not press when the kunoichi moved back to gain space. You should have remained close, but you gave her the advantage. The poison slowed you, made you careless. YOU CANNOT LET YOUR FIRES OF YOUTH BE DIMINISHED!"

"YES, GUY-SENSEI!"

"RUN FIVE HUNDRED LAPS AROUND KONOHA IN PENANCE, LEE!"

"I WILL DO ONE THOUSAND!"

At the words 'one thousand', Tenten winced. Lee sprinted off so fast he left an afterimage, and again she felt awe at the monsters she had for teammates. A thousand laps probably didn't even faze him anymore. Guy turned his attention to her, and she gulped.

"What did you do wrong?" he asked again.

"I stopped fighting when I hurt the real Naruto," she said, analyzing herself. "I was worried... about him, like maybe I killed him by accident."

"You have killed before, and in more or less the same way," Neji pointed out.

"But Naruto is a fellow shinobi of Konoha!" Tenten said angrily. "I couldn't just cut his damn leg off for a promotion!"

Guy was faced with a dilemma. His original point had been to never hesitate, but had Naruto not been a jinchūriki, the match would've been over the instant she stabbed him. Of course, he couldn't tell her he was the Kyūbi's vessel, so any lesson he tried to make would undermine itself. In the end, he took a middle ground.

"Naruto is a special case," Guy told them. "Uzumaki have unusually long lifespans and recover quickly, so I wouldn't be surprised if he has been discharged already."

Neji and Tenten both looked shocked.

"Also, you have most likely won a psychological victory. Every death you visited on a shadow clone was returned to his memories, so it is possible he may not return to being a ninja anyways. Recovering from that kind of trauma might be impossible, even for him."

"I—"

"Five hundred laps, Tenten."

As Tenten ran off, grumbling about insane ninja training regimens, Guy turned back to his lone successful student. As Gaara's opponent, Neji could easily win against the Ichibi's jinchūriki with the Gentle Fist, either by closing the tenketsu around the seal or forcing as many open as possible, to drain all of Gaara's chakra. Sadly, as a short-range fighter, Neji was at a serious disadvantage in the face of Shukaku's sand.

The Hakkeshō Kaiten, a Main Branch technique Guy knew Neji had successfully reverse-engineered by watching his uncle spar, would certainly help. His mastery of a 'perfect defence' to match Gaara's was a good start, but perhaps not enough. After all, how do you break through a wall of animate sand as hard as steel?

"Put these on," the taijutsu master told his student, holding out a pair of Lee's leg weights. Neji raised an eyebrow, but put them on anyways.

"Consider this training for the eventuality of encountering someone immune to the Gentle Fist," Guy said. "A samurai, for example, wears armour, and you cannot access their tenketsu. Furthermore, individuals with a certain amount of chakra can simply expel large amounts to reopen closed chakra nodes. You will need an alternate weapon, and this is that weapon."

"What might that be?" asked Neji, suddenly feeling rather nervous.

"PREPARE TO BE INVIGORATED BY THE FIRES OF YOUTH! STRONG FIST-STYLE DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

**.:.**

Naruto awoke in the hospital a few days later to Sakura, who was sitting in a chair by the bed. He blinked, the room swimming into view. There was a ferocious burning sensation in his leg, but he ignored it.

"Good, you're awake!" she said. "I'll go get the nurses."

"S-Stop," he choked, waving for her to stay there. "W-What happened?"

"Well, you won the fight," Sakura said. "If you impress the judges enough in the final rounds, they'll promote you to chūnin. Your first opponent is Temari."

"Who?"

"The blonde girl with the giant fan."

"Oh."

Sakura smiled and stood up. "You have a month, so train hard!"

Naruto nodded happily, but his expression became confused. "How are you here? Didn't you get hit with an explosive tag?"

"I'm not here," she explained. "This is just a clone. The real me is being treated for some severe burns on my arm and chest."

The bunshin sauntered away, leaving Naruto alone with his thoughts. He had a month to train for Temari, a powerful kunoichi from Suna. From what he'd seen of her match with Dosu Kinuta, she had a wide array of wind jutsu to draw on, and the vacuum trick suggested that her shape transformation was highly versatile. The most obvious strategy was to destroy the fan, but she probably dealt with that on a regular basis. Naruto had a sinking feeling that she was far from powerless without it.

He made a list of all the things he knew about her. She was intelligent. Older than him. She had better taijutsu than him, and was physically stronger too. A keen strategist, considering how quickly she mentally dissected and countered Dosu's weapon. Adaptable.

A ninja.

How could he possibly compete with her? She was so far out of his league, he might as well challenge the Hokage for all the good it would do.

"What can I do?" he moaned.

"Get the hell out of bed and come with me," a voice replied. "I'll see you become chūnin if it's the last thing I do."

"Kakashi-sensei?"

The masked Copy Ninja sat in the window frame, perched precariously on the sill. His one eye looked unusually sombre as he watched Naruto, waiting for him to obey.

"The important part of this tournament isn't winning, it's impressing the judges," he said. "The Hokage and Kazekage both need to see that you are worthy of being selected, and there are representatives from Otogakure, Takigakure, Kusagakure and Amegakure here to weigh in as well. Unfortunately, you were caught cheating once in the first test. Your solution for an insurmountable obstacle was ingenious, but now you _must_ beat Temari."

"How do I do that?" Naruto muttered dejectedly. "She beat that guy without even breaking a sweat, and she'll be training hard for the next month too!"

"You have something she doesn't have," Kakashi pointed out. "You have me. I have over a thousand jutsu I can teach you, and many of them are specifically for countering fūton users."

At the words 'one thousand', Naruto winced. "What about Sasuke?"

At this, Kakashi looked absurdly smug. "I'm training both of you. Eventually, if I've done my job right, you'll have to fight each other, and that's what Sasuke is counting on. So, rather than train you to fight each other, I'll be giving each of you a specific jutsu to defeat the opponents you'll face on the way."

"What's Sakura supposed to do for the next month?" Naruto asked. Kakashi responded with another smug look.

"I've hired someone to look after her," he said. "She ought to be out of here in only a few days, assuming she gets looked at by a medic."

"That reminds me, she just had a clone go and get a nurse," Naruto said thoughtfully. "Think I can get discharged today?"

There were footsteps in the hallway, growing louder by the second, and Kakashi froze. He tentatively grasped Naruto by the wrist, and just before the door opened, they were gone.

**.:.**

Hiashi Hyūga found himself in a position he did not see often: a situation beyond his control. It had taken an embarrassingly long time for his clan to realize the heiress was missing, and now that they did it was far too late. Tsume Inuzuka and Kuromaru were tracing her scent, but from what he could gather from the dog-woman was that it was gone. Not faded, as smells are wont to do over time, but simply nonexistant. It was as though some strange being had abducted Hinata where she stood and left nothing in their wake.

Hanabi was safely tucked away in the household, and the rest of the Main Branch was competent enough to take care of themselves. Hinata's _in_competence made him seethe. Now he had an entire clan sweeping the streets with byakugan, searching endlessly for something they would never find. The Inuzuka clan was hunting too, aware that Hinata represented a potential suitor for Kiba. Some other individuals had volunteered as well, those with hunting summons or tracker instincts.

She was gone, though. Hiashi knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was no longer in Konoha. Hinata was one of only two female Hyūga he couldn't kill with a word and a sign, suggesting that her abduction was a planned affair. How could agents of some foreign power get pat ANBU? He knew the answer to that too: ANBU wasn't a replacement for the Police Force. Fugaku was a righteous bastard, but this would have never happened if he were still alive. Hiashi wished desperately that he could have intervened, but there was no use pondering what-if.

Now, Hinata was doomed to be used as breeding stock. Her babies would give the byakugan to some other village, and if that village wasn't one of the Five, then the first to discover it would crush them and take the byakugan for their own. His pride was ruined, his power distributed and his family torn apart. The only solution he could see was the path he was about to undertake.

He knocked on the door of the ANBU commander's office, where Agent Boar was conversing with someone he couldn't see. For the sake of politeness, Hiashi had left his byakugan off.

"...we've also received reports of a missing civilian, and Anko Mitarashi is still off our radar," said Agent Boar. "We recommend additional support from Root in locating and potentially neutralizing the threat."

"Granted," came the voice of Danzō Shimura. "Agent Hyō and Agent Terai will accompany you and assign you aid from the barracks. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to speak with Lord Hyūga.

Agent Boar left, the white-clad operative bristling beneath his cloak, and Hiashi stepped into the office. Danzō's official role was advisor to the position of Hokage, but even in the corps he was still recognized as the head of Root.

"My daughter is missing," he said, his voice unwavering.

"Rest assured, law and order in Konoha is working at its best to locate Hinata and bring her kidnappers to justice," Danzō said emotionlessly. "Good day, Hiashi."

"Are you searching the other hidden villages? Have patrols found leads outside the Land of Fire?"

"You are hopefully aware that we only have jurisdiction within Fire Country," Danzō countered. "Unless you wish to destabilize international diplomacy, we cannot do that."

"You do that on a regular basis," Hiashi said. "Help me find Hinata."

"The abduction or defection of Mitarashi represents a far greater threat to this village. Make it worth my while," Danzō said bluntly.

Hiashi knew exactly what Danzō was talking about. Several years ago, he had recruited members of the major clans into Root. Torune Aburame, Fū Yamanaka, Hyō Inuzuka and Tera Namikaze were all indoctrinated at a young age, and with the Hokage's assent. Hiashi had righteously refused to allow Hinata to be taken and used as a weapon of Konoha's paramilitary group, and it seemed Danzō resented that. There was still one Hyūga of eligible age...

Now, he had to make an impossible decision. Faced with two disgusting options, Hiashi said the only thing he could. "I have to think about it."

He left the office feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders, and his clan's prized eyes were blind to Danzō's triumphant smile.

* * *

**I am indeed talking about Hanabi. She would make an excellent emotionless psychopath, don't you think?**

**When Orochimaru says 'sacrificing a soul to the death god', he's being facetious... right? _Right_?**


	11. Four Generations of the Fire's Shadow

**Chapter Eleven: Four Generations of the Fire's Shadow**

* * *

Sakura took one long, boring week to recover from detonating an explosive tag at point-blank range. Her entire arm felt raw and useless, like an alien attachment poking out of her shoulder. The head doctor, Momoe Yūhi, explained to her that the damage would heal enough for her to regain full movement, but there would always be scarring. The scar tissue was hidden under layers of bandages and casts, and Sakura hadn't actually seen the results of her flight of idiocy.

She wondered what Naruto and Sasuke were doing. Her clones reported that Kakashi had fled the hospital with her blond teammate, citing a longstanding feud with Yūhi as the reason for his reluctance to stay and recuperate. Naruto, who now had a ropy scar on his thigh, had apparently healed almost completely in such a short time that Sakura had to wonder what his secret was.

Momoe had been surprisingly unhelpful every time she asked of the Uzumaki clan had a bloodline limit, or if Naruto's parents were on record at the hospital. Every time Sakura raised the subject, the red-eyed woman would change the topic or, failing that, pretend she hadn't heard the question. Ditto with every other hospital worker, which lead Sakura to believe that something was going on. She resolved to speak with Iruka, or check the records department for Naruto's birth certificate.

As she was wondering where to find other Uzumaki, Kakashi appeared at the end of her bed. "Get up, we're leaving," he said.

"Where's your Icha Icha book?" she asked idly, stretching and standing up.

"Here," he said, taking a small volume out of his jacket. The title was _Icha Icha Tactics_, not one that she recognized.

"When did the new book of porn come out, sensei?" Sakura wondered.

"Last week," he said, flipping the page. "Why? Do you follow this wonderful series?"

"You're acting weird," Sakura said. She meant it as a throwaway comment, but Kakashi apparently took offense.

"Are you coming or what, Sayuri?" he said impatiently. Sakura froze.

"My name isn't Sayuri," she whispered.

"Good! Mine isn't Kakashi, although that _is_ the name of the person who gave me bad information. Why don't we introduce ourselves? My name is Jiraiya, and I'm a world-famous author and S-class pervert. I moonlight as a shinobi, too." The man who looked like Kakashi gave her a thumbs-up but made no move to remove the henge.

Sakura smiled serenely. "I'm Sakura Haruno. My dream is to surpass my teammates and Pervert-sensei. Also, I'm halfway out the front door."

Jiraiya nodded sagely. "Bunshin?"

"Bunshin," she confirmed, vanishing in a poof of smoke.

**.:.**

Kabuto reached out and plucked a mask from the wall. It was an ornately detailed work of Uzushio craftsmanship, depicting the snarling face of the shinigami. He held the worn wood in his hands, absorbing the exquisite accuracy and abhorrent beauty. Then, he put it on.

The shinigami himself became visible through the eyeholes of the mask, floating timelessly in the halls of the temple. Kabuto almost recoiled, until he remembered Orochimaru's words.

_'It is bound to the wearer of the mask, for it is part of the mask. One and the same, a weapon of the Uzumaki.'_

He smiled, and reached for his face. The shinigami mirrored the action, its right hand clenching around the hilt of a knife in its mouth. Kabuto felt the spectral hilt in his own palm, despite there being nothing there. The next part was the important bit, according to Lord Orochimaru.

He held the tip of the knife just in front of his stomach, as though he were about to perform seppuku, and plunged it in.

"Shiki Fūjin: **Kai**!" he proclaimed, forcing the shinigami to slit its belly by cutting open his own. Being a medic, the normally lethal wound healed on his own body almost instantly, but the reaper had no such luck. The soul of the Fourth Hokage shot out of the gash, spiralling into the sky, followed by the malevolent black presence of Kurama's yin chakra. After that, the souls came thick and fast, back through time until two lonely and crippled souls escaped together, travelling to the Pure World.

Kabuto took the mask off, letting the injured shinigami disappear from his sight. Now, all that was left to do...

He threw the mask to the ground, shattering it. Unbeknownst to him, the shinigami screamed in anguish as its phylactery was destroyed, removing its anchor to the physical world. With no mooring and nothing to hold it together, the shinigami dissipated into nothing.

The streets of Konoha were as busy as usual, but the spirit worlds were silent.

**.:.**

"I have saved a critical part of your ninja training until now, boys," said Kakashi. He, Sasuke and Naruto sat in a loose circle at the highest point of a low bluff. It was somewhere in Fire Country, but with Kakashi's speed they might well have been on the River Country border for all they knew. One moment they were at the gate, and the next they were here.

"This critical part, could it have helped us fight Haku?" asked Sasuke.

"Yes, but you weren't ready for it then," their sensei replied shamelessly. "Now, here's the test. Sasuke, hold out your hand."

Reluctantly, Sasuke did so. Kakashi pressed a piece of paper into his hand, one that Sauke seemed to recognize. A blue glow sprang up over the paper, which crinkled quickly in his palm.

"Okay," Kakashi said congenially. "Your chakra nature is lightning. I can work with that, maybe give you some pointers on creating your own techniques. The sharingan works especially well with lightning, given its power of perception. If you go over there, I'll be with you in a minute. Naruto..."

He gave the knucklehead a long look. Naruto couldn't be allowed to know his own chakra nature. If it was lightning, or wore, wind, he had no hope. Temari had years of experience in wind manipulation, and anything less than genuine Katon techniques would hold no ground against her. He had one month to drill the basics of using fire into Naruto's head, and that long road began with a single step.

"Sit," he instructed. Naruto sat.

"What makes something dangerous?"

Naruto scrunched up his face in concentration. "Is it, uh, how much it can hurt you? No, it's the number of ways you can mess up with it!"

"Close," Kakashi said approvingly. "It's how _uncontrollable_ it is. When you control something, you understand every facet of it. You can make it do your bidding and you can make it betray its very nature. You can make it start and stop. When you can't do that, when you toy with forces beyond your control, you risk disaster. _That_ is danger, and that is what makes S-class ninja dangerous. They have techniques and power that make them armies unto themselves, and they are so uncontrollable it's a wonder the hidden tolerate them.

"All of the five elements are absolutely controllable _except for one!_ The element of fire, the 'hungry element' as the First Hokage called it, is dangerous. You can mould fire, you can direct it, but fire is without a doubt beyond our control. It surges and devours fuel and oxygen beyond the control of the shinobi who created it. With enough heat, you can charbroil your opponent even if your attack misses. The element of wind, so powerful and so finely tuned for war, falls apart in the presence of fire. If you are going to beat Temari, you have to master this."

Naruto's jaw was starting to feel slack with awe. Kakashi Hatake was going to teach _him_ fire jutsu! Most of his speech about danger and control stuck, but the back of his mind clung stubbornly to the idea of him blowing fireballs like Sasuke all over the battlefield.

"Teach me," he said, blue eyes like polished sapphire.

Kakashi nodded. "First, you have to begin meditating. Allow all of your thoughts to wither away... as hard as that may be for you."

Sasuke snickered.

Kakashi took out fire starting kit and a piece of flint, striking a spark against a kunai. A bundle of kindling burst to life, warm for a short but sweet period as its life drained away in a blaze of glory. Kakashi and Naruto stared at the glowing edges of the leaves and sticks. Entranced, Sasuke joined in the surreal experience.

"At its most base form, combustion is a chemical reaction," Kakashi intoned.

"Hydrogen, carbon and oxygen consumed to produce carbon dioxide and water," Sasuke said under his breath.

"Allow the thought to _become_ you," Kakashi said approvingly. "Your chakra as fuel, devouring the air you breathe in a fiery burst, leaving behind soot and unbreathable gas. The ultimate ending for anything, and uncontrollable... dangerous."

He made a 'shut up' motion at Sasuke.

"Now, all fire techniques have the same basic principle. Rather than gathering chakra in your hands or feet, it begins in the lungs. Form it into fuel, something that powers the greatest inferno you can picture, then exhale. Form the hand seals, and force your chakra to superheat and explode. This is the basis of the most basic katon technique: the Gōkakyū no jutsu. Try it, Naruto."

In retrospect, perhaps Kakashi should have made sure Sasuke wasn't directly in front of Naruto when he first tried it. His sharingan bared, Kakashi watched Naruto correctly cycle the chakra through his lungs and throat, form the snake-ram signs, then exhale. What followed was the single most destructive technique Kakashi had ever witnessed. A gargantuan stream of continuous fire burst forwards, originating from a point about two inches in front of Naruto's mouth. It swirled forwards like a monstrous snake, winding headily over the edge of the hill and down towards lower ground. Kakashi swore he started to tan right then and there.

Sasuke had the presence of mind to leap out of the way in time, but his forearm guards were scorched anyways. He stood to the side, irritably attempting to extinguish his arms.

Naruto finally shut off the flame thrower and promptly collapsed, his chakra nearly spent. Kakashi checked his pulse, then stood up and walked over to Sasuke.

"It seems he has a natural affinity for fire," he said. "Strange, his father preferred wind and his mother tested for water once. Huh."

Sasuke looked at him sharply. "You knew Naruto's parents?" he said shrilly.

Kakashi slapped his forehead. "I'll teach you an assassination technique if you swear to never mention that fact ever again. Don't ask me, don't ask anyone, don't go looking for answers, and don't tell Naruto."

As Kakashi launched into the principle of the Raikiri, Sasuke hid a grin. It was easy enough to fool the diagnostic paper into marking him as a raiton user. In fact, Sasuke had no idea what his affinity was, but he subscribed to the principle that knowing made learning other types harder. He gleefully threw himself into training, determined to beat Kin Tsuchi into a dark smear on the ground.

**.:.**

The whore's name was Akane. One look at her provocative dress and lurid makeup was enough to convince Tayuya that she was a prostitute. After quickly assuring her that she wasn't a policeman, Tayuya took Akane into a motel room, turned out the lights, and played a little ditty on her flute. Akane was out instantly, and a quick strip search made sure she wasn't a sting.

That said, Tayuya was a small woman, and carrying Akane all the way from the red-light district to the Haruno home in the suburbs was back-achingly difficult. She got a few strange looks from passing civilians, but ultimately the burlap sack she used to conceal the body was uninteresting enough that she made it without attracting too much attention.

"I got the whore, guys!" she shouted, dragging Akane over the doorstep and dropping her in the front hall. "Are we having dinner before we do the ritual thing?"

The basement door opened, and Sakon's head popped out. "We're just putting the finishing touches on it. I got Ukon makin' soup. Go help him out."

Tayuya glanced down at Akane. She _really_ didn't want to drag the whore into the basement, but now it was a matter of principle. She picked the woman up and started on.

"Whoa, hey, I got that," said Sakon. "Just go make the salad or something."

"Sexist bastard," Tayuya mutted under her breath. Then, louder, "Ukon's doing it, he doesn't need help."

"Well, Ukon's a bitch and so are you. Get in the kitchen, Tayuya."

"Fuck you," she retorted, passing him and descending into the Haruno's basement. Kizashi had furnished one of the larger rooms downstairs with a carpet and electrical lighting, ostensibly to make playing pool more comfortable. Now, the pool table was shoved aside, and the light was dim.

Kizashi and Mebuki were pushed up against a wall, their hands and feet tied together and rudimentary gags keeping them quiet. Orochimaru took perverse pleasure in the fear in their eyes, fear of death and fear of him. Tayuya dropped Akane next to them and sat back on the far end of the room, content to enjoy the show.

"Is she still alive?" Orochimaru asked.

"Yeah," Tayuya replied. "Said you wanted to sacrifice her, right?"

"Quite. However, it is not her soul that will be sacrificed tonight. The shinigami is... indisposed right now. Instead, her body will be offered up as a host for someone much more worthy of walking the earth. Someone to replace the unreliable jinchūriki of the Ichibi in our plan."

He sliced the sack open and effortlessly hauled Akane out, dropping her on the floor at his feet. Tiger. Snake. Dog. Dragon. Orochimaru clapped his hands and pressed them against either side of her head.

"Edo Tensei!"

A creeping white fog swirled from the floor, reaching up to devour Akane whole. Unconscious, she didn't even twitch as death's embrace came for her. Her body disintegrating into fine white powder, a coffin rose from the floor about six feet away. The surface was emblazoned with the symbol '1'.

Quickly, Orochimaru darted back to the wall and grabbed Sakura's mother. With precise power he summoned a soul from the afterlife, and the personification of death came for Mebuki. She made a pathetic screaming sound around her gag, thrashing and moaning until death picked her to pieces. A coffin marked '2' emerged next to the first one.

Finally, Kizashi was brought before Orochimaru. He faced the snake sannin defiantly, chin up and anger replacing fear. Orochimaru paid his bravado no mind and performed the sacrifice. "Edo Tensei!"

As Kizashi Haruno faded away, the last thing he saw was the third coffin. Number four.

* * *

**Naruto knows the Grand Fireball technique now! The reason I'm not diving right into puppetry is because that happens at the end of the first arc. The ability to use some katon ninjutsu is a setup for his fight with Temari, because air feeds flames. That's not quite how it really works, but this is fiction! If this _weren't _fiction, Amaterasu (as hot as the sun?) would turn the ground into magma for ten miles in every direction.**

**Also, I don't know if fooling chakra paper is possible, but the idea is that Sasuke wants to milk Kakashi for all he's worth. In canon, he learned Raikiri to beat Gaara, but Kin doesn't warrant that kind of firepower. However, if his chakra nature was lightning, Kakashi would probably jump at the chance to pass on his signature technique.**

**I thought sacrificing Kizashi for Minato was a nice touch.**


	12. Promoted

**Chapter 12: Promoted**

* * *

The arena was roaring. Gathering close to five thousand people in the same place generated a lot of noise, and most of them were there to witness one of the greatest shinobi of his generation: Sasuke Uchiha. Ticket sales were through the roof, which meant ANBU were forced to act as security. So many civilians came that commerce had effectively shut down for the day.

Up in the Kage box, the Hokage and Kazekage sat side-by-side. Below them, a row of four seats were set up for the Head Jōnin of Ame, Kusa, Oto and Taki. Strangely, all four had opted to send ambassadors and underlings in their stead, rightly fearing the chance of ambush in Fire Country. This was the first occasion in some time that all of them had chosen to abstain, as usually one or two would brave the journey. Working with ninja was a treacherous business indeed.

The first of the four to arrive was the representative of Kusagakure. A tall jōnin with silver hair and ringed eyes, she introduced herself as Ryūzetsu. After her was Shibuki, the son of the former leader of Hidden Waterfall. Shibuki politely shook Ryūzetsu's hand and bowed to the Kage before sitting heavily in his chair. His eyes darted nervously about the box, and he trembled ever so slightly. Sarutobi wondered what had happened to make him a nervous wreck.

Next was the ambassador of Otogakure. Whatever they expected from the mysterious new village of sound, it wasn't this. Kimimaro Kaguya was an exceedingly tall and imposing shinobi, who was ill enough that you could knock him over with a feather. Sarutobi recognized that behind his frail-looking exterior was an iron physique and honed skill. He was accompanied by an orange-haired girl from the Fūma clan, whom he introduced as his aide and occasional nurse. The Hokage resolved to keep an eye on him, and possibly ask him about his leader after the tournament. What kind of man was his Head Jōnin to send a sick man in his stead?

The last was a woman who Sarutobi recognized almost immediately. Her black cloak with green trim, purple hair, and striking features had been related to him many times by Jiraiya.

"Konan?" he said, leaning forward in his seat. Konan looked up at him and smiled faintly.

"Hiruzen Sarutobi, Lord Hokage," she said, curtsying. "Jiraiya-sensei spoke highly of you."

"He also said you were dead," the Hokage mused, hiding his own surprise. "He was inconsolable for years. Thought he failed you as a teacher. I am pleased to know that you are alive."

"Did he?" said Konan, confused. "I would not have thought— I will have to speak with Leader of this. Is he here in Konoha?"

"I saw him yesterday," Ryūzetsu spoke up. "I was relaxing in a hot spring when two girls started throwing shuriken at a towel rack. Next thing I know, a man with silver hair is laughing at them and running away."

Konan's gaze lingered on Ryūzetsu's eyes, until she snapped out of her trance. "I would be pleased to meet with my old sensei. He would be happy to know that we succeeded where he failed."

The Kazekage leaned forward. "You overthrew Hanzō of the Salamander?" he said interestedly. "That's something not even the legendary sannin were able to do, and records say Hanzō didn't take them seriously."

"We had the advantage of surprise," Konan said negligently. "Even still, he was a great and terrible shinobi. We lost many of our warriors, including..." She trailed off.

"Does Jiraiya normally travel with a pink-haired girl?" asked Sasame Fūma. "It, uh, it looks like he's down there in the stands."

The seven ninja craned their necks and looked forward. Sure enough, Jiraiya was sitting in the front row of the stadium. On his left was Sasame's target of curiosity, the pink-haired kunoichi, and on his right was the jōnin-sensei of Team Oboro, with whom he was talking animatedly. Konan's breath caught in her throat. To see the man she revered as father, the custodian of the Ame orphans, who she thought to have betrayed them...

It seemed Pain felt the same way, for their discussion grew more and more heated. The pinkette, looking slightly uncomfortable, struck up a conversation with the boy on her left. Sarutobi nodded.

"I do not know why Haruno is with him, but that is Jiraiya," he said. "She is Sasuke's teammate, as well as Naruto's."

"Their jōnin-sensei must be very powerful, for them both to be in the final round," said Shibuki. Ryūzetsu nodded in agreement.

"Kakashi Hatake, is he not?" said the Kazekage.

"The one and only," Sarutobi chuckled. "Goodness, I wonder what he's taught them?"

"Sasuke will defeat Kin," Kimimaro said boredly. His tone contained a touch of authority, enough to sway Ryūzetsu, Shibuki and the Kazekage.

"What makes you so certain?" Konan asked shrewedly.

"His defence against genjutsu is greater than her ability, and he lacks an area of expertise. With his sharingan and from what I have heard of him, Sasuke is a powerful shinobi. Kin is good, but today is not her day to triumph."

Sarutobi stood. As the host, it was his duty to welcome the crowds and begin the fights, though it was Gekkō's job to introduce the matches.

"GUESTS FROM OTHER COUNTRIES AND CITIZENS OF THE LAND OF FIRE!" the Hokage boomed. "WELCOME TO THE CHŪNIN SELECTION EXAM'S FINAL ROUND: THE TOURNAMENT! TODAY, THESE EIGHT YOUNG NINJA WILL FIGHT TO PROVE THEIR SKILL, HONOUR, AND DETERMINATION! OUR PROCTOR, HAYATE GEKKŌ, WILL START THE FIRST ROUND!"

Hayate jumped down from the stage, looking dubiously prepared. His clothes were rumpled and his hair mussed, and he was blushing faintly.

"First, we have Neji Hyūga of Konoha and Gaara of Suna," he told the audience.

Gaara, the young child who hosted a demon, looked up at the crowd. Their baying stoked Mother's fury, and he could feel his own bloodlust rising. As champion of this tournament, he would have the chance to slake his thirst with the blood of his foes. His father's orders were tempting as well. He might have to do that too.

Neji looked slightly different. He now wore the Konoha forehead protector cinched over his left wrist, and his jacket now had long sleeves. His forehead was bare, the swastika tattoo of the Main Branch clearly visible in black ink on his skin. Neji's face screamed 'tired', and his eyes were half-lidded.

"Fate has brought us here today," he said by way of greeting.

"If fate is the name you give to the engines of destruction, then it has indeed," Gaara replied. If it weren't for the insane gleam in his eyes, he would have looked as innocent as the child Karura held in her arms the night she died.

"There is one rule: what I say goes." Hayate suddenly looked more alive than he had in years. "Begin!"

Gaara's sand rose up and crushed. Neji darted backwards, avoiding the waves of sand with astonishing agility. As the sand coiled around like a snake to strike again, he raced forward and slammed a glowing palm into Gaara's chest. Gaara fell back, protected by his sand shell, and a burst of Shukaku's chakra reopened his tenketsu.

"Sabaku Kyū," he growled, and the sand encased Neji. It spiralled up his leg, flowing into the folds of his clothing.

"Kawarimi."

Gaara rolled his eyes, crushing the replacement log into splinters as he searched for the real Neji. He got him soon enough, as the Hyūga appeared in his face and began driving punishing blows into his armoured chest. Gaara realized immediately that Neji was relying on a Strong Fist approach, rather than the subtlety his clan was renown for. The sand protected him... until Neji's chakra-coated hands reverted it into ordinary sand, beyond Mother's control.

"You—!"

Following Neji's systematic dismantling of his defence, Gaara was mercilessly impaled by a Gentle Fist strike in the diaphragm. He doubled over, wheezing, and choked out something threatening. The sand moved with new speed, enveloping and crushing Neji so fast, not even a disciple of Might Guy could escape.

He didn't need to, it seemed. A blue light seeped out from the cracks in the sand, and Gaara's control was torn to shreds as Neji's Kaiten blasted the sand away. He tumbled back, gasping for air.

"Your defence surpasses mine," Gaara said in surprise. "No matter. I will crush you all the same."

"You are thoughtless," Neji grunted, regaining his footing. "Arrogant. Foolish. I will win, because it is your fate to lose to me."

They met again. With the Gentle Fist, Neji deflected Gaara's grasping sand and made to attack the boy himself, but Gaara was quick to switch with sand clones, making the exercise futile. Neither was loosing energy, Gaara being too stationary and Neji drawing on the boundless wellspring of Youth. Sand swirled, died, and came back in a fierce storm as Neji turned like a hurricane and fought for his life.

Repeated use of the Kaiten drained Neji's chakra considerably, leaving him forced to rely on a taijutsu form he'd only learned recently. Meanwhile, Gaara was forced to avoid his hands, as reanimating his sand took precious time that he didn't have. Neji slammed a fist into his shoulder, revealing another sand clone.

The first to make a mistake was Neji. Carelessly, he left an arm open in the midst of a fierce offense, and the sand latched on to the opening. As it constricted around the Hyūga prodigy like a malevolent snake, shifting cautiously to hold Neji's tenketsu closed and keep his hands at bay, Gaara drew him closer.

"Is this fate?" he asked, almost earnestly. "Is this what is destined, is this what the wheel of time decrees? Is it your fate to lose to me?"

"Foolish," Neji said simply. "Gate of Opening!"

With five times his normal strength, Neji ripped free of the sand and kicked Gaara point-blank in the upper arm, spinning around with the force of impact and kicking him in the other arm. With two sharp cracks, both of Gaara's humerus bones broke. Moving on autopilot now, the sand siezed control of the raging Neji, forcing him to step up his fight lest Mother devour him.

In the end, the power of the First Gate undid him. Going for a final thrusting kick to the dazed Gaara, Neji tore a ligament. Reflexively, he crouched low to the ground to avoid further injury, and that was when Gaara moved in. This time, the Hakkeshō Kaiten didn't save him.

"Stop!" Hayate bellowed. Amazingly, Gaara stopped. Neji's body was cast carelessly to the ground, covered in blood and broken but still breathing.

"Winner: Gaara!" the proctor announced. There was considerably less applause than there would have been if Neji had won.

**.:.**

"As he is no longer in the tournament, who here is in favour of promoting Neji Hyūga to chūnin?" asked Sarutobi.

"H-He performed well," Shibuki said.

"I am told that he learned the use of the First Gate in this last month. Is it true that he is considered a prodigy?" asked Ryūzetsu.

"So I am told," Konan supplied. "For one so young to nearly best a jinchūriki is an accomplishment in its own right."

"He fights well," Kimimaro rumbled.

"He _lost_," the Kazekage pointed out.

"Both of Gaara's arms are broken. In a battle, he would be dead before he had the chance to kill Neji," the Hokage said astutely. "All in favour?"

Five hands went up. Sasame's did too, but nobody paid her any attention. Only the Kazekage abstained.

"Very well. It seems Konoha has a new chūnin."

**.:.**

"Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha versus Temari of Suna!"

Before Naruto got into the ring, Kakashi clapped him on the shoulder. "Remember what I taught you Naruto, but the simplest strategies are the best. Be yourself."

"Uh... Thanks, Kakashi-sensei," said Naruto.

Temari looked worn and tired. If Neji hadn't slept in days, her insomnia had stretched for months. Nevertheless, her war fan was at the ready, and Temari looked just as manic as her brother. Naruto wasn't sure what training she had undergone to fight him, but he knew it couldn't be good.

"They call you the most unpredictable ninja in this village," Temari said, hushing the crowd as she spoke. "What can you do that I cannot predict? What strategy have you that I cannot counter? I will enjoy eviscerating you, Uzumaki."

"I dunno what that means, but I'm gonna win!" Naruto declared.

"Begin!" Hayate shouted, ducking out of the way.

"Daikamaitachi no jutsu!" Temari yelled. Naruto dodged out of the wind scythe's way, watching horrified as it turned a tree into splinters. Temari brought the fan to bear and swung again. The wind roared and whistled as it formed a thousand knives, each slavering for flesh.

"Katon: Gōkkakyū no jutsu!"

The fireball's diameter was twice as tall as Naruto, and the resulting swirl of oxygen sapped the strength of Temari's wind strike. Temari nodded appreciatively.

"You can learn. Perhaps you aren't the dead last I was lead to believe. Unfortunately, your fire jutsu is worthless. I anticipated such a strategy, and I have equipped myself to handle such a tactic. Fūton: Shinkū!"

With a wave of her fan, Naruto's fire petered and died. He stumbled back, dizzy from chakra expenditure, but Temari forced him into action again with sweeping strikes, sickle-edged air cutting rips into his clothes as he ducked and dodged like a madman.

"How the hell did you make me stop?" Naruto wailed, hurling a brace of shuriken to cover his tracks.

"You'd be surprised how many people are prepared to fight a fūton user," Temari said, batting them away with the edge of her fan. "I've had to fight a lot of them, and in the end it boils down to strategy or katon ninjutsu. Strategy is my forte, but it wasn't until last month that I realized how to counter fire. Combustion can't occur inside a vacuum, and it just so happens that I stumbled on that idea last month fighting Dosu."

Kakashi felt like cursing. He had hoped Naruto would be able to out-play Temari with characteristic lack of wit and a barrage of shadow clones, but apparently Naruto wasn't ready to do that. His fight with Tenten had given him a healthy appreciation of putting kage bunshin near enemies who could kill them with impunity. Now, his most powerful techniques had been rendered useless by one girl and her accursed nature transformation.

Naruto howled internally. Temari was a brick-wall opponent like Zabuza, with the artillery, armour and know-how to beat the stuffing out of him. He cast his mind back to Team Seven's battle with Zabuza. How could one take advantage of a superior opponent?

With a blast of fire, Naruto attempted to close the gap and engage in taijutsu. Temari didn't even pause in her assault, warping the air around the inferno to choke off the oxygen and swinging the fan wildly at Naruto. The speed at which she accomplished both was rather impressive, and resulted in Naruto crashing head-on into the far wall.

"You have a lot of chakra, but you're burning through it pretty quickly," Temari taunted. "I barely have to use any for wind release techniques. Daikamaitachi no jutsu!"

Again, Naruto dragged himself out of the technique's path, but his strength was indeed waning. Two fireballs had taken their toll, and Temari looked as hale as ever. Zabuza had been taken care of by Kakashi; Team Seven never had to fight anything more than water clones. He had beaten Haku... with the Nine-Tails' help. Calling on the demon was a sure-fire way to increase his speed and power, but in this case he didn't have the time to demand the fox help him: Temari would rip him to shreds while he pleaded for help.

_'There's only one thing I haven't tried, but it's risky,' _he thought, flipping backwards over a particularly powerful wind shot. _'It could backfire easily... but it's the only chance I have.'_

Temari decided that her opponent was too fast to be dealt with any time soon. He needed to be tired before she could tag him with a Sickle Weasel technique. She didn't want to needlessly subject him to her actual sickle weasel, but if he kept dodging, she would do it. Now he was behind the wreck of a tree, hiding from her.

Naruto jumped up and fired another row of shuriken, all of them with flames licking at their heels. Recognizing a ploy when she saw it, Temari quickly dodged out of the way rather than returning them with a blast of wind. They lay in the ground like land mines, little twinkling lights like stars in the ground. Temari advanced past them, her fan dragging menacingly across the ground.

"Any last words, Uzumaki?" she asked.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah... Surprise!"

One of the flaming shuriken behind Temari transformed back into Naruto, a small portion of his sleeve aflame but otherwise uninjured by the experience. He grabbed the rivet holding Temari's fan together, channeled as much chakra as humanly possible into the cool metal... and the fan exploded. The shadow clone dispelled itself habitually, allowing Naruto to bask in the glorious sight of Temari rendered helpless.

The crowd was quiet as Temari examined her destroyed fan. It was hardly a unique fan, they could be bought easily enough in Suna, and as the Kazekage's daughter it wasn't as though she couldn't find a replacement. But it was her mother's, a last heirloom from the distantly-remembered figure from her childhood. While she expected rage, all she found was sadness. It wasn't as though she deserved any less.

"I forfeit," she said quietly, and left the arena.

**.:.**

Above the applause, the judges reconvened to judge Temari.

"Her battle acumen was sufficiently demonstrated in previous battles," said Kimimaro. "She is chūnin material."

"He outsmarted her nicely," Shibuki weighed in.

"Her nature transformation is far above genin rank. Jōnin level, perhaps, for I have never seen someone so efficiently dismantle a fire technique," Ryūzetsu said, a tinge of awe entering her voice. "Victory by fluke: Naruto has none of the skills a ninja values beyond brute strength."

"On the contrary, he distracted and outplayed her," Konan argued. "I saw a boy fight and defeat a girl well above him in every way, using a technique I've never seen used before. Why should she not be punished for overconfidence?"

"Unpredictability, sheer power, longevity, the Uzumaki were known for all of these things," Kimimaro said impatiently. "We digress. Temari's pending promotion is the subject."

"Put it to a vote," the Kazekage insisted.

The vote was three-three. Kimimaro, Ryūzetsu, and the Kazekage nominated her, while Konan, Shibuki and the Hokage abstained.

"We should discuss this later," the Kazekage suggested diplomatically. "This is the event we've been waiting for, after all."

**.:.**

"Now, for the third fight: Sasuke Uchiha of Konoha versus Kin Tsuchi of Oto!" Hayate announced, looking as excited as the audience felt. Both fighters descended on the arena with trepidation, equally wary of the other's abilities. Kin was a long-range master of genjutsu, and Sasuke could easily kill her with melee range. Conversely, if he was kept far away enough from her by genjutsu, her poison would finish him off quickly. Neither spoke as Hayate started the fight and moved back, though Sasuke began unwinding the bandages on his right arm.

Kin grimaced as her opponent's eyes flashed red. The sharingan was a formidable dōjutsu, able to pinpoint projectiles and make the wielder react without conscious thought. Sasuke could evade her opening salvo without trying, and then she would be screwed. Then again, that wasn't the point. Her orders were to survive the fight and not surrender, not to win against the Uchiha. With that thought in mind, she embraced her inevitable defeat.

Sasuke's arm was a blackened mess. the veins stood out prominently, and Kin felt an involuntary pang of sympathy pain. "Chidori," he said quietly, and a spark jumped from his thumb to his fingertip. In an instant, his entire forearm was wreathed in an electrical storm, the sound of the arcing generating the noise of a thousand birds. He leaned forward and charged.

To be fair, Kin tried to dodge and hit him with senbon at the same time, but his speed was incredible. Aided by the lightning, Sasuke managed to alter his course enough to only be hit by one needle, and at the same time smash the chidori into Kin's abdomen. The power of the technique was low, so much so that the current only jolted her slightly, but his stiffened fingers pierced an uncomfortable distance into her stomach. Kin looked down at her chest, Sasuke's hand buried in her belly up to the first knuckles, and promptly passed out.

Despite the anticlimactic ending, the crowd was ecstatic. In the next round, after all, he would be fighting Gaara, the Sand's greatest competitor. Shucking Kin like a worn garment, Sasuke stumbled away. The burn in his arm bothered him far less than it used to. He could do it again... he hoped.

**.:.**

"Hmm..."

"No."

"But—"

"If she—"

"I say no."

"_No_."

"Very well. Kin Tsuchi is not a chūnin."

**.:.**

Behind Jiraiya in the stands, a nondescript old lady watched Zaku Abumi and Kankurō bow to one another. Chiyo saw the pseudo-jinchūriki cast a nervous glance in the direction of the Kage box, while Kankurō waited for her to begin the invasion with a resignation she hadn't seen in a long time. The traps had been set, the gambits assembled, and the targets acquired. Now all she had to do was attack. Kabuto's glasses glinted at her from across the arena, a sure sign he was looking at her from another part of the stands.

She fought long and hard against the compulsion of Kotoamatsukami, but the mangekyō sharingan was too powerful for her. Chiyo was at least thankful that she still had her sense of self, but she wondered from time to time if it wouldn't have been kinder for Itachi to make her think she did this of her own free will. The most powerful genjutsu in the world made her nod to Yakushi, cast her chakra threads into the ground, and _pull—_

* * *

**I'm not happy with how these turned out, but this story doesn't need perfect fight scenes. They just need to be fun, I suppose.**

**How did Naruto 'splode a fan? I'll give you a hint, it's completely canon. Find out... in the next chapter!**


	13. Extinguished

**Chapter 13: Extinguished**

* * *

_"Climbing trees without using your hands," said Kakashi. Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto stared at him blankly. With an aggrieved sigh, the wounded shinobi ascended a nearby tree as though gravity had suddenly changed directions._

_"How do you do that?" the genin chorused, watching attentively as their sensei came to a stop above their heads._

_"Channeling chakra through the soles of your feet," Kakashi told them. "Use the right amount, and your feet will synchronize with your sandals, which will in turn stick to the trunk. The difficulty is finding the right amount. Oh, and make sure you stop the chakra flow before trying to take a step. You could hurt yourselves."_

_Naturally, Sakura made it up the tree first. She playfully stuck her tongue out at her teammates, both of whom were having problems. Naruto didn't put nearly enough of his chakra into the task, while Sasuke put just a tad too much. The Uchiha was flung bodily from the tree, his sandals cracking and the bark rupturing._

_"See, there's your problem," said Kakashi. "Too much chakra pushed into an inanimate object will destabilize and destroy it."_

_Naruto stared, Kakashi's words pounding in his head._

_Too much chakra..._

**.:.**

As soon as the match began, Kabuto activated the Nehan Shōja technique, enscorcelling most of the audience into a deep sleep. Chiyo covertly pulled on the chakra strings leading to the centre of the arena, and a mechanical behemoth rose up. Like a surfacing whale, the metal plates of Suna's largest puppet emerged from the wreckage of the arena. It looked vaguely like a human, if a human had eight arms and two heads. In the light of day, it looked like a bijū from the depths of a puppeteer's hell.

In the next instant, the first phase of the invasion fell apart as Sakura, who had resisted the Temple of Nirvana genjutsu, turned to her left and slapped Jiraiya awake. Jiraiya, who was always affable about being slapped awake by women, looked up at the massive humanoid hovering over the arena and came to the only logical conclusion.

"Son of a bitch."

Across the arena, roughly a third of the stationed ANBU removed their masks and waded into the seats, beginning to jab all of the unconscious ninja with weapons Jiraiya could only assume were poisoned.

_'Where the hell did that come from?'_ he wondered, gazing up at the gargantuan iron puppet.

"Get down there and make sure your teammates are alright, kid," he ordered gruffly, shooting glances across the arena. He needed to find and kill the puppeteer.

"Sure, Jiraiya-sensei," Sakura replied, jumping from the first row into the pit and racing off down an exit tunnel.

Jiraiya looked up at the Kage box. There wasn't any fighting from up there, but neither were there chakra signatures. Whatever was going on, Sarutobi had decided to relocate. Jiraiya desperately wanted to organize the remaining ninja and fight, but the puppet was leaving the arena. It had no legs, as it floated like a regular puppet. The waist was instead connected to a massive metal skirt, which in turn probably held enough automated weapons to make it a weapon of destruction on par with the Nine-Tails.

Only one thing for it. Jiraiya rattled off a few mud clones to take out the impostors in ANBU, then summoned Gamabunta behind the puppet. For once, the great toad didn't argue with his summoner before bowling into the puppet, taking it out from behind.

**.:.**

Sarutobi and the rest of the judges only caught a glimpse of the puppet's heads before a rush of colour crashed over their vision. When it cleared, the six of them stood on a rooftop across Konoha, translucent purple walls tapering to a peak imprisoning them there. Orochimaru stood at the far end, next to a man who looked like a statue of a shinobi rather than an actual ninja. Sarutobi recognized him instantly as Hashirama Senju.

"Ryūzetsu, Shibuki, I must apologize," whispered the snake sannin. "You seem to have become collateral damage. If you stand aside in this fight, you may leave unharmed."

"Th-that's rather g-generous of you," Shibuki stuttered. "I– uh– I'll be going now." He walked towards the far end of the barrier, followed quickly by Ryūzetsu.

"What is this, Orochimaru?" Sarutobi demanded. "You don't have the skill to fight me!"

"_He_ does," Orochimaru said innocently. Sarutobi dodged the gust of wind from the Kazekage's outstretched hand, twisting with enhanced agility as the other Kage attempted to snag him with an offhand blast.

Orochimaru approached Sarutobi pleasantly, allowing his sword to dangle loosely at his side. The Hokage was showing real fear now, as Kimimaro broke away from Sasame and used his Dance of the Camellia. The Professor blocked the first few strikes with his bare hands, but Kimimaro was too powerful to be denied.

Hashirama darted towards Konan, who didn't appear to be fazed by death staring her in the face. Just before he reached her, a puff of steam washed off of her robes and she was gone. The First Hokage changed directives and moved to keep Ryūzetsu and Shibuki out of the fight. Sarutobi sent up a quick prayer of thanks that Orochimaru wasn't fielding his most powerful piece.

Faced with three opponents, Hiruzen wondered if the walls Orochimaru had erected were penetrable, but a cursory examination showed him it wasn't the case. Four ninja, each wearing the Hidden Sound regalia, were stationed at each corner, encasing both themselves and the battlefield with purple flame. Another inspection revealed that they extended under the roof as well.

The Kazekage brushed his blue kimono off, revealing an armour covered in archaic symbols and stitched leather. Around his feet, the earth began to stain yellow as his gold dust seeped out. Dark rings appeared around his eyes, and the gold dust rose from the ground.

"This is the end, Sarutobi," he murmured. "I am sorry, but your village is of less value to me than my own."

Kimimaro was still pressing the Hokage backwards, and now Orochimari joined in. He raised both hands, pointing them at his erstwhile sensei. "Sen'eijashu!" he cried, and a dozen snakes emerged from both of the sannin's sleeves. As they neared the Hokage, their mouths simultaneously opened to reveal copies of the Kusanagi longsword.

Hiruzen quickly fired a river of mud from the ground at his feet, knocking Orochimaru back and sending the snakes' aims off. All of them hit the ground, their payload uselessly divulged into the dirt. He frowned; Orochimaru was too good to be hit by such a simple earth manipulation. Was he not taking this seriously?

His musings were violently interrupted by Kimimaro, who casually pulled his spine out and whipped it at the Third. The sight was so bizarre that he almost didn't dodge, and when he did the Kazekage was able to hem him in with gold dust.

"I remember you," Sarutobi said, with a calm he didn't feel. "Kimimaro Kaguya, the last survivor of the Kiri massacre."

"That is me," Kimimaro agreed, slashing at Sarutobi with the bone-whip. The ill shinobi stood tall against the Hokage, looking as proud as he had ever in his life. "In the name of Orochimaru, I face my greatest challenge yet: a Kage. Prepare for your last fight, Hiruzen Sarutobi."

As much as he was a pragmatist, Sarutobi was tempted to see if he could fight all of his opponents one-on-three. However, Konoha no doubt needed his help, and so he would call in his reinforcements.

Enma, the Boss Summon of the monkeys, took one look at the situation (Orochimaru, the Kazekage, a reincarnated Hashirama and an unknown ninja, two cowering youngsters in the corner, an impenetrable wall and the village embroiled in conflict) and came to the only logical conclusion.

"Son of a bitch, Hiruzen."

"I need my staff, Enma," Sarutobi muttered. "This is far too dangerous."

Enma made a noise of supreme annoyance. "Just remember, even I can be cut by the Kusanagi," he reminded the Hokage.

The Kazekage looked put-upon, despite ostensibly being in a fight for his life. "You're cheating, Saru! Don't you remember, it's supposed to be one shinobi's bloodline against another's!"

Despite the astounding hypocrisy of that statement, Sarutobi didn't reply with words. Instead, he sent a dragon made of mud from the river at his feet towards the Kazekage, who caught the entire construct with a net of gold dust. At the same time, Sarutobi blocked Kimimaro's spine with Enma and slammed the butt end into his chest. Kimimaro didn't even move back, though a small smile appeared on his face.

Orochimaru came from behind, Kusanagi longsword swinging with abandon. Sarutobi began to block him with Enma, but parried instead to avoid scratching his summon. Kimimaro took advantage of the opening, as did the Kazekage, and for the first time Hiruzen wondered what would become of him.

**.:.**

Having your will robbed from you was a strange feeling, but being aware of it was even stranger. Minato was sure that Hashirama and Tobirama were both catatonic, neither aware of what the traitor had done to them. _He_ knew, but for the life of him he couldn't disobey. He finished planting the last sai-spiked kunai as Chiyo's latest creation burst from the arena in the distance, and with a burst of chakra he was at the Hokage tower.

His orders were simple: incapacitate all Konoha ninja, brand them with the Hiraishin seal, and apply some of the poison his blades were now covered in. Avoid dying too many times. Minato fought tooth and nail against the compulsion to march up to Kotetsu Hagane and give him a light slash across his neck, but it happened anyways. Seconds later, Izumo Kamizuki was laid out too.

Faster and faster, the Hiraishin carrying him from place to place, Minato dropped hundreds of people in the first ten minutes, and not all of them ninja either. Pretty soon, cries of "The Yellow Flash has returned!'" were mixed with "Run for your lives!", and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. At times, he saw the Second Hokage in his peripheral vision, subduing the more powerful shinobi with his undying fortitude. He himself was forced to stop at least once to take out one or two ANBU, but the majority fell like cattle.

He wished he could stop, wished he could help Jiraiya in his fight with that _thing_ or his son with whatever peril he faced, but soon there was nothing to do anymore. All but a handful of Konoha's ninja were unconscious, and most of the remainder were harmless genin.

Minato strode though a prominent boulevard, ignoring the screams of terror from fleeing civilians. He had one last order to carry out.

When Kakashi Hatake attacked, it was with none of the nervousness he had expected. All of the emotion in his mismatched eyes had been killed, replaced with a true shinobi's dedication to duty and unnatural calm.

Minato didn't even feel pain as the Chidori plunged through his chest, pushing his unbeating heart out the back of his ribcage. It was a testament to Kakashi's power that it even hit at all. But soon Kakashi was flat on his back, like the rest of the city-state he'd sworn to defend to his last breath.

His last breath had come and gone, and he protected Konoha even then. It seemed oaths didn't extend to the afterlife.

**.:.**

Naruto felt lost. The Hokage was stuck within some kind of impenetrable barrier behind him, Konoha was literally screaming in terror in front of him, and his teammates were nowhere to be found. Even Kakashi was gone, though Naruto suspected he was fighting one of the giant snakes out there in the forests. If even one of them got to Konoha, there could be too many casualties to count. He turned to Kabuto, who had lead him there.

"What's with that giant person?" he asked, jerking a thumb at Chiyo's puppet. The second head opened its mouth and launched a sparkling purple mist at Jiraiya and Gamabunta, which it then set on fire. The resulting flare looked like a second sun, and the heat was just as intense, even from the roof they were on.

"Elder Chiyo of Suna is one of the most powerful ninja in history, and certainly the most accomplished puppeteer. Even Monzaemon Chikamatsu, the creator of the art, couldn't match her at her peak." Kabuto adjusted his glasses. "In the Second Ninja World War, she and the Puppeteer Brigade of Hidden Sand were the elite fighting forces of Suna, much like Sakumo Hatake and his Delta Squad were for Konoha. At every turn, Chiyo's deadly poisons were matched by Lady Tsunade's antibiotics and cures. In the end, Suna lost the war, but she is by far one of the most powerful people alive."

"_Wow_," Naruto said. "Why is she here?"

"It looks like Suna is invading Konoha as Oto's ally," Kabuto said flatly. "You may have noticed that the Hokage is fighting the Kazekage over there."

Sure enough, Sarutobi was busy warding off a golem composed of gold. Everywhere Enma hit, the dust would part and try to pull him from Hiruzen's hand, but the Professor was doing alright. At the same time, a creepily bored looking guy was evading Sarutobi's Flame Dragon, and Orochimaru was lazily talking with a kunoichi in a green bandana in the corner. It did not look good for the God of Shinobi.

"Hey, that's the sensei for those Oto guys!" Naruto cried, pointing accusingly at Kidōmaru. The kneeling spider-man stopped concentrating long enough to wink charmingly before reasserting his control over the violet flames.

"Does that surprise you?" Kabuto asked drolly. "Now, we need a plan. The Hokage is isolated from the village, Jiraiya and Gamabunta are occupied, and most of the chūnin and jōnin are out of the action. Your thoughts?"

Naruto racked his brains. He had two assets: Kabuto, and the genin fighting the snake summons. "Maybe if I summoned the rest of the toads to take care of the snakes?" he suggested tentatively. "Then, we'd have the rest of the genin to fight off whoever that really fast guy is."

"Not a bad strategy," said Kabuto. "Your main problem, obviously, is 'that really fast guy' is using the Flying Thunder God technique. Oh, and he's immortal. I think Kakashi managed to rip his heart out a few minutes ago. Your other problem is that a few hundred genin, probably between D and B-rank, have no way of fighting off an invasion force of A to S-rank ninja. I applaud your thinking, but it won't be done."

"Yeah? You got a better plan, bastard?" Naruto demanded. His understanding of the Hiraishin was as the technique that let the Fourth Hokage beat an entire brigade of Iwa ninja before he was elected as the Old Man's successor. The thought of such a weapon turning on its creators was scary, in a far-off sort of way.

"Why, now that you mention it, I do!" Kabuto said cheerfully. "I'm going to sever some of the cervical nerves in your spinal column while you aren't paying attention. Then, I'll use your limp body to attract Lord Hokage's attention, following which Temari will bring me Asuma's head. The Hokage, distracted, will then die. It's a pretty good plan, don't you think?"

Naruto wasn't sure _what_ he thought, because at that moment, thinking was difficult. So was breathing. He was just going to take a little nap and think about Kabuto's plan, that's all...

**.:.**

Within about ten minutes, Sarutobi was completely overwhelmed. He used an all-purpose Doton blasting technique to push the gold dust away, but Kimimaro was unstoppable. His bloodline limit aside, the man was probably Kakashi's equal in taijutsu. Sarutobi mentally gave himself ten minutes to kill him and the Kazekage so he could focus on Orochimaru.

The Shiki Fūjin refused to work. Earlier, he had conjured enough shadow clones to ensnare all three of them with the shinigami's chains, but the reaper hadn't heeded his call. Hiruzen wondered how Orochimaru had warded off the god of death, before Kimimaro drove a bone spike into his nearest shadow clone.

His wayward student had little to no interest in the fight. He was emphatically discussing kinjutsu with the ambassadors of Taki and Kusa. Ryūzetsu was firmly against their use, Shibuki figured that they could be put to positive use on occasion, and Orochimaru was of the opinion that 'forbidden' was a label for things that scared people. They were all correct, but Sarutobi was more interested in why he thought the sick man and the Kazekage would be enough to kill him.

Then, Temari appeared outside the barrier with Asuma Sarutobi's head mounted on a pike. His eyes were wide and unseeing, a dribble of blood running from his mouth to join the stream dripping from his neck. Sarutobi hesitated at the sight, just in time for the Kusanagi to lop his entire right arm off.

He sank to his knees, Enma rolling out of his right hand and into a sea of gold dust. The screaming pain in his shoulder was quickly replaced with horror as a parade of Oto ninja began to drag corpses up to the rooftop. Chōza, Inoichi and Shikaku were first, followed swiftly by a parade of bodies. At the far right, he realized, Kabuto Yakushi was holding Naruto's limp body by the scruff of the neck.

"You were strong to the end, sensei," Orochimaru said. "Whatever philosophy gives a man power, can also give him weakness. Look at Asuma... or what's left of him. A man wandering through life, who wanders into death. The invaluable Ino-Shika-Chō assault team was formidable, yet their might couldn't stand against Tobirama Senju, brought back by his own invaluable Edo Tensei. ANBU? _COMPLACENT_! THEY WERE SUBVERTED IN MERE WEEKS!"

Orochimaru's voice dropped from a roar to a whisper. "And Naruto, your precious embodiment of the Will of Fire? Stupid and weak! At every turn, Konoha is inferior to me and my philosophy. Why else would all of your students abandon you? Jinchūriki against jinchūriki, could you truly argue that Gaara would lose?"

"You're mad..." Hiruzen whispered. "Hashirama-sensei—"

"No, I'm nothing but sane," Orochimaru replied. "And with the Hidden Leaf under my command, the world will see my vision as the dawn of a new age."

He stood up, striding behind the catatonic Hokage and preparing the Kusanagi for one last strike. Its keen edge hummed as it sliced the air, aimed for Sarutobi's skull.

That was how Hiruzen Sarutobi died: broken and defeated.

And Orochimaru laughed.

* * *

**Eh, I kinda enjoyed that fight scene. If it were just Sarutobi versus Kimimaro and the Kazekage, maybe he would stand a chance, but with Orochimaru providing support it was over from the beginning. Hashirama was sort of an honour guard, because throwing him in too would be too much.**


	14. Please Welcome Your New Overlord

**Chapter 14: Please Welcome Your New Overlord**

* * *

Pain's Animal Path rounded up his remaining genin and ordered them to flee Konoha. His discussion with his former sensei had been _enlightening_, but now it was time for Team Oboro to get the hell out of the Leaf. He looked up once more at Jiraiya, who was fighting the puppet with wild ninjutsu that no normal human could use. However, Chiyo was good, perhaps even too good for the Toad Sage.

Billowing in steam, Pain summoned a centipede the size of Manda himself and mentally ordered it to enter the puppet and jam the mechanisms with chitin. Jointless, the metal monstrosity would fall to Gamabunta's powerful fighting style, and the centipede would hopefully escape alive. He considered whatever debt he owed to Jiraiya repaid.

With another poof of steam, Konan appeared next to him. She was kneeling, and looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"Konoha is falling," she said. "We must find your genin and leave before—"

"It is taken care of," Pain interrupted her. Together, they left the ruins of the arena and walked west to Ame, trying not to think about what was happening behind them.

**.:.**

Jiraiya knew the puppet was done for when that infernal clicking noise stopped. It was like the sound of a regular puppet, but metallic and magnified to the point that every movement, however minute, made a bang like a firecracker. Some ancestral spirit must have looked down and smiled.

"It's my turn now," he muttered. "Gamabunta!"

The Toad Boss nodded, promptly spewing enough oil to fill a small lake onto the puppet. Jiraiya looked back, making sure that Sakura was gone, and turned back to find the Gamayudan hardening nicely. He hadn't known for sure that Gamabunta could produce enough, but this was better than he'd expected.

"I'm out of chakra," Gamabunta informed him, panting heavily. "You go on without me!"

"Katon: Endan!" Jiraiya roared. The fireball produced was rather small and not particularly hot or fast, but the Toad Oil ignited instantly. Soon, the arena was just as hot as before, and Jiraiya was basking in the blaze. With any luck, Chiyo had been inside the thing all along, and was now a blackened corpse. Gamabunta returned to Mount Myōboku, and all was well.

Or not, because as soon as his summon left, Jiraiya realized that there was still a vast arsenal of explosives inside the puppet, as amply demonstrated by the craters around the battlefield. If they all detonated at the same time...

Jiraiya wiped the smirk off his face and broke into a run, sprinting in the general direction he knew Sakura to be in. She was about seventy meters away, fighting with a genin from Yugakure. Jiraiya grabbed her by the waist, unceremoniously slinging her over his shoulder and continuing on. The doomed ninja, one of Guren's reinforcements, looked back at the blazing, melting puppet, and felt a twinge of fear.

A twinge that exploded into panic just before the puppet exploded. From miles away, the preternaturally fast Jiraiya and his hapless cargo watched the conflagration, the former with a small sense of pride.

"... What did you do?" Sakura asked warily.

"I ripped the tag off a mattress," Jiraiya explained patiently.

"..."

"I keep one on me at all times, just in case I need to do something spectacular," he went on jocularly. "Orochimaru invented that trick; you should've seen Dan's face when his soul caught fire!"

"We can't go back to Konoha," Sakura said, her face ashen. "That guy... he said Orochimaru used the Second's resurrection technique to bring all of the dead Hokage back to life. I think... I think the Fourth Hokage just euthanized all of the ninja in the village. They're all lying on the ground, except for the genin. Well, and you. Oh, and I think Guy-sensei is still fighting the Second. But everyone else is dead!"

Jiraiya laughed, perhaps a bit hysterically. "I _knew_ Tobirama created the mattress trick!" he complained. "Did... did you just say Minato Namikaze was resurrected?"

"Reincarnated, actually," Sakura corrected. "He's not really _alive_, and there was a body sacrificed to bring him back. At least, that's what the books say the technique needed."

"Yeah, well the books _also_ say that Minato Namikaze killed over two hundred Iwa shinobi in the last war without breaking a sweat," Jiraiya interrupted. "We don't know if he could do any more, considering the Elemental Nations called for a ceasefire after that, but if the Shinobi Corps has been decimated like you said, we need to leave."

"Leave?" Sakura blurted out. "But- but Sasuke! Naruto! Kakashi! Hokage!"

"Let me put it another way: come with me, because going back is suicide," Jiraiya said, with an air of finality. "Even _I_ don't stand a chance, and I'm a sannin. Orochimaru's probably sent Hashirama or someone after me, but right now our only hope is rounding up all of the ninja out of the village on missions and trying to put together a plan."

"How?" Sakura moaned, burying her face in her hands.

"Well, for starters, I'm the GALLANT AND NOBLE JIRAIYA OF THE SANNIN!" Jiraiya shouted, employing a Guy-style genjutsu to make rainbows spread across the sky. "I BRING PEACE, IF NOT HARMONY! FLOWERS BLOOM AT MY HEELS! _ICHA ICHA PARADISE_ IS SHORTLY TO BECOME A FEATURE FILM!"

He looked down at her. "But if that doesn't help, I'm also the master of Konoha's spy network. Now come on, let's go find Tsunade."

He turned and walked off. Sniffling, Sakura followed.

**.:.**

When Naruto awoke again, he was in a long room with a low ceiling and dim lights. A futon had been hastily rolled out for him in a corner, but his view was mostly blocked by a wooden table to his left. He scrambled to his feet, warily examining his surroundings. It looked like a badly-assembled workshop, with gears, joints and bottles of strange liquids lying about on the tables. Next to him, at the small end of the wall, was a weapon rack filled with unusual blades. Hurriedly, he grabbed a serrated katana and began advancing down the room.

"Put that back, you'll only hurt yourself," came an aged voice. Startled, Naruto dropped the sword's tip to the ground. Ahead of him was an old lady, barely taller than him. Her light purple hair and dusty cloak were all he could see of her, as she faced the table in front of her. Peeking around, Naruto was horrified to see a red-haired man laying on his back, her hands buried in his chest. His eyes were wide and glassy.

"What're you doing?" Naruto cried, lunging forward to pull the crazy woman away from the poor guy. He might have been able to, but a pair of arms encircled his waist and held him back. Naruto turned around to get a look at his assailant... a creepy, dead-eyed woman with a square mouth.

"AAAAAAAGH!" he screamed, knocking the arms off him and swinging around with the jagged sword. In response, the woman caught the blade with her bare hand and wrenched it out of his grasp. She made a clicking noise as she moved, and retreated from Naruto's petrified gaze of her own accord.

The old woman finally turned around. She was even older than Naruto had thought, with a sunken face lined with years and liver spots on her hands. When he looked at her, though, she was remarkably similar to the Old Man: elderly, powerful, and with an air of well-deserved arrogance that let you know that you were an ant in a god's presence. He liked her already.

"Do not try to use chakra," the old woman said. She indicated Naruto's left wrist, which now sported a tattoo of an Uzumaki-style swirl. "I have sealed most of your chakra away. Attempting ninjutsu would render you unconscious, and possibly kill you."

Perhaps simply to spite her, or to see if her words were true, Naruto made two hands seals.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no—"

-THUD-

When he managed to drag his eyelids open, she was staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

"You are just like your mother," said the old lady, sounding amused. "There is no ramen here, nor is there anything you can use to entertain yourself. I would prefer it if you remained quiet while I work."

"You knew my mother?" Naruto asked, somewhat curious in spite of all that had happened.

Chiyo, for it was Chiyo who had imprisoned him, grimaced. "I am not certain, but I would bet a great deal of ryō that your mother was Kushina Uzumaki. She most likely died during the Kyūbi's attack."

"What was she like, huh?" Naruto pressed. "Was she pretty? Did she have any siblings? Why are there no other Uzumaki? How did you know I like ramen? I haf'ta know this stuff, believe it!"

Chiyo pressed a forefinger into Naruto's shirt, over a stain that looked and smelled of Teuchi's product. He had the grace to look embarassed, if only for a moment.

"I need to fix Son," she told him. "Then I need to justify salvaging Leviathan, and speak with Kankurō about borrowing some of his tools. Stay out of the way."

"What's a Leviathan?" Naruto asked, sidling up to her and staring deep into Son's innards. He was filled with broken and damaged equipment, most of which were weapons but some he couldn't identify.

"Leviathan? Were you not paying attention to the fight Jiriaya had with my creation?" she asked, surprised. "It was not my best work, as it was somewhat rushed, but the firepower and armour thickness made up for it. We had to test some new chakra engines to help move the joints, and now that it's been destroyed Suna needs them back."

"Jiraiya was here?!" Naruto exclaimed. "Why didn't he try and help the Old Man?"

Chiyo ignored him.

**.:.**

Shikamaru, Ino and Chōji had just had their asses handed to them by Anko, and were now awakening in an out-of-the-way administrative room. Their feet and hands had been encased in some kind of crystal, making moving next to impossible. Of course, when Shikamaru wants something enough, the impossible became completely possible, and so the Nara was sitting on a desk, feet propped up comfortably in front of him. Ino and Chōji were forced to stand.

The door opened, admitting Kankurō and a woman none of them had ever met. Her green haori had one sleeve cropped short and the other far too long, and neither of them looked happy. Kankurō turned as he walked in, revealing a kid entombed in the same sort of crystal on his back in place of Crow.

"You sure he's coming?" Kankurō was saying. "I think he's still gotta finish that seal-thing."

"Lord Orochimaru's juinjutsu is prepared for three people," the woman replied. "He is accumulating the natural chakra for a fourth."

"Mmm. Can I leave this brat here?"

"Go," ordered the woman. Kankurō dropped the kid's crystal prison on the floor and walked off. Now that he had a closer look, Shikamaru identified Konohamaru Sarutobi frozen in the material. His face was perpetually frightened, reflecting the state in which he'd been captured.

"My name is Guren," said the woman. "Before Lord Orochimaru gets here, I'm supposed to tell you a few things. Now, according to the notes I've been given, you three are the heirs to the Akimichi, Nara and Yamanaka clans. Newsflash: you are heirs no more. Congratulations on your promotions to clan head."

She smiled beatifically, ignoring the fact that she'd just told them that their fathers were dead. Predictably, Ino and Chōji were shocked. Shikamaru maintained an outwardly bored exterior, but inside he was thinking furiously.

_'Mitarashi disappeared during the second exam,'_ he mused. _'Troublesome woman. Now Konoha's been invaded, which means the Hokage is dead. The brat is here, and if we've all been named clan heads that means his grandson is probably also head of the Sarutobi clan. So Asuma-sensei is dead too. Juinjutsu... curse seal... we covered that in the Academy. The Hyūga use those, and they say Orochimaru uses them to empower and control his subordinates. Mitarashi had one too, didn't she? An experimental one? And now she's a traitor, despite Ino's dad trusting her with all that stuff when people specifically told him not to. Either she was a damn good sleeper, or this seal is bad news. And there's one for each of us.'_

He exhaled, aggrieved. _'Bloody hell, we're buggered now.'_

Guren grew tired of Ino's sobbing and plastered her mouth with crystal. It went on, more muted and more pained. Chōji wisely sobered up, though tears still trickled down his cheeks. Their captor went on.

"Also, as you probably know, several votes are required to install a new Hokage. Most importantly, the heads of the Hyūga, Uchiha, Aburame and Akimichi clans. The daimyō's support is valued, as is that of some others." Guren cleared her throat unnecessarily. "As acting head of the Uchiha, Sasuke has given his full support to the new candidate. The Hyūga haven't capitulated yet, but it's only a matter of time."

"You'll never have my help!" Chōji screamed, heedless of what his outburst might do. "Orochimaru will never be the Hokage!"

"Of course not, Orochimaru is beyond such station," Guren said sweetly. "You're going to put your support behind Shibi Aburame."

"Smmmbmh?" Ino said, which was probably a garbled version of 'Shibi'?

Shikamaru understood the ploy immediately. On the international stage, Konoha was an important figure. In theory, the final defence by a village against invasion was its jinchūriki. Each had two... save Konoha, who retained the most powerful: the demon fox. Shikamaru recalled fuzzily that the Nanabi was no longer Suna's, probably part of their motivation to invade with Oto. Unfortunately, after the Kyūbi's attack on Konoha the Fourth had to kill it, at the cost of his own life. No jinchūriki, no final line of defence. Of course, with only that nutjob and the weakest Bijū under their control, Orochimaru's little ploy was weak.

That meant that, even if Suna and Konoha acted as essentially one entity under Orochimaru, apperances needed to be maintained. Shikamaru could picture the story, as leaked to the other hidden villages: after dying of old age, the councilmen replaced Sarutobi with Shibi as an intermediate Hokage, until someone more viable for the job could be located. Jiraiya, maybe, or Tsunade. That is, until Orochimaru accomplished whatever he was doing in the Land of Fire. Then... then he didn't know. But getting Shibi in power seemed better than forcing Orochimaru's hand. In Shikamaru's opinion, Chōji needed to cooperate.

He said as much.

Guren smirked.

The sound of clapping echoed from down the hallway, and Oochimaru strode into the room. Shikamaru couldn't really say what made such a pale, thin man so imposing. He even looked sickly, and he was sweating despite the coolness of the room. It was like the sannin was dying.

"Bravo, you clever boy," Orochimaru said. "I knew the Nara were the smartest clan in this village!"

He motioned for Guren to release Konohamaru, which she did. The boy was asleep, and suddenly being able to breathe didn't manage to wake him up.

"Unfortunately, you don't have much of a say in the matter," Orochimaru told Chōji. "I'll bet your friend here has figured out that, too."

Without warning, his neck stretched impossibly, and he bit Ino on the collar. She screamed around the crystal gag, pupil-less blue eyes widening in pain. She writhed in her bonds for a few seconds, then sagged.

Chōji, to his credit, waited until Orochimaru was close enough before giving him a solid whack in the stomach with his impromptu shackle. Orochimaru didn't even flinch, and his fate was the same as Ino's.

He stopped at Shikamaru.

"What are your thoughts on my invasion plan?" he asked conversationally.

Shikamaru blinked. "Tactically, it's pretty good," he acknowledged. "You killed the Hokage and distracted Jiraiya, and they were the two best ninja in the village. Your summons dealt with the genin, Manda hemmed the civilians in and kept them from fleeing, Minato took care of organized resistance and Tobirama covered the rest of our forces. Your biggest problem is Might Guy. I think he's still fighting Tobirama."

"I'm sure there are other problems you haven't brought to my attention, such as the little matter of shinobi out on missions," Orochimaru said.

"How troublesome."

Orochimaru roared with laughter, and with more force than strictly necessary bit Shikamaru on the neck.

The last thing the Nara saw was Orochimaru advancing on the sleeping Konohamaru.

* * *

**Here is a conundrum: why is it that Tobirama failed to use the Hiraishin while fighting Sarutobi? I think there are some differences between Part One and Part Two that are irreconcilable.**


	15. Policy Changes

**Chapter 15: Policy Changes**

* * *

"So, you're Chiyo."

"Chiyo is my name, yes."

"Are you a puppeteer?"

"I should think that was obvious."

"How do you make the puppets move 'n stuff?"

"Years of experience, boy. I've been trained by a hundred battles."

"I've been trained by Kakashi-sensei."

The two of them were hunched over Son, while Chiyo taught him the nature of the puppet's mechanisms. Son relied on a central system of gears that translated localized kinetic force from anywhere in the puppet to a large frame, giving it a degree of resistance to impact. It also connected the limbs to the internal frame and hosted engines, if the puppet was sufficiently large enough to need them.

"This is the Minoru Mechanism," she explained. "My great-grandfather invented it, and that was what made puppeteering a viable combat skill. Before then, puppeteers needed to be extremely skilled, lest their puppet break in battle."

Then she frowned. "Did you say your sensei was Kakashi? Kakashi Hatake?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, they say he's famous. I'd never even heard of him 'till they made him our sensei, but I'd never heard of you either. I guess I don't hear of these famous people."

Minato sneezed.

Chiyo looked sad for a brief moment, and then it was gone. "These puppets were made to look like real people," she said softly. "This one is my son, and the one who stopped you earlier is his wife. Your sensei's father, Sakumo, killed them."

"I– I didn't–"

"Don't concern yourself with it," Chiyo murmured. "Guilt by association is a vicious moral standard. If everyone sought revenge against those related to the guilty, we would have decimated ourselves long ago. Kakashi didn't kill my son any more than I killed the Third Kazekage."

"_What?_"

"But that is a story for another time," Chiyo said firmly. "Now, if you truly wish to learn puppetry, you must first study the puppet. Son and Daughter-In-Law are ideal for this, as I used many of the techniques you will need to learn in their creation. Pivot joints, gliding joints, framing styles, the Minoru Mechanism, and clockwork are all part of the design. Weapons are also critical. I can teach you how to make light shields, water shields, senbon launchers, flame throwers, and weapons so convoluted they would make your head spin."

If Tenten had been there, she might have fainted with joy. Naruto's eyes grew wide and sparkly. The chance to apprentice with a master was something he'd only dreamed of, and just by the way she spoke _a famous kunoichi was offering it to him! _He stuttered something unintelligible, but no words came out.

"Would you like to learn the Art of the Puppeteer?" Chiyo offered cordially. "It might help to pass the time."

"Yes!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Good. Pay attention, this is how you callibrate the limbs..."

**.:.**

The thing that irked him most about his opponent wasn't the immortality, or the teleportation, or the ninjutsu mastery. It was the silence. Tobirama Senju, a decrepit corpse brought back from the mausoleum, didn't speak at all. Banter was half the fun of battle, and the Second just refused to indulge him.

"YOU MAY BE ALIVE, BUT NOTHING CAN RESTORE YOUR YOUTH!" Guy thundered, kicking Tobirama's head clean off of his shoulders. It landed with a wet splat on a nearby wall. The headless body raised its sword and attacked anyways, prompting Guy to rip the katana from his grasp and plunge it into the dead Hokage's chest. The body ignored the injury... until Guy crushed his left thigh with a chamber punch.

He looked around, noting that most of Konoha looked deserted. With Minato working to keep civilians from fleeing, a series of invaders had rounded up the downed Konoha shinobi and dragged them off. Only he remained free, though he suspected his students were fine. None of them had clashed with the undead yet.

Tobirama's head regenerated, and without hesitating he pulled his sword out of his chest and advanced sluggishly, his left leg dragging grotesquely.

"Suiton: Suiryūdan no jutsu," he hissed, his voice like metal scraping ice. Guy was almost glad for the silence, but his minor irritation turned to worry as Tobirama vomited a steady stream of water onto the pavement. It bubbled into a massive font of chakra, unlimited by mortal constraints, and soon the taijutsu master was facing down a water dragon of epic proportions.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Guy drew his second wind and met the possessed man head on. Holding his breath, he allowed the water to crash down on him with the force of a thousand punches, but he held his ground with chakra and march through. The Second Hokage died today; that, he guaranteed.

"LEAF WHIRLWIND!"

**.:.**

Root headquarters were just as Kabuto remembered them: dank and hopeless. He scuttled by, his form all but invisible to the elite ninja that Danzō employed to undertake Konoha's... _darker_ missions. Seduction. Political assassination. Men in direct service to the Hokage, working for the good of the Hidden Leaf. Not their guardians, for that was the job of the Uchiha's Military Police (when they existed). Hunters. Dogs, baying on a leash. Danzō's leash. Once, Kabuto had been one of them. He had been a loyal shinobi of Konoha (and Kumo and Iwa, for he had infiltrated both), but no longer. Not since the attempt on his life.

He took a sharp left, noting that many of the cellblocks looked emptier than he remembered. Kabuto looked questioningly at his companion, whose face was twisted with anger and disgust.

"Your thoughts?" the rogue medic offered.

"This place is _sick_," Minato Namikaze growled. "I never got around to organizing my portfolio, but even Lord Sarutobi didn't know about Danzō's methods."

"On the contrary, he approved of them," Kabuto refuted. "Who do you think funded Root? When Lord Orochimaru devised a training regimen to strip a shinobi of emotions, do you think he did it on Shimura's orders or Sarutobi's?"

He waved his hand for silence and got it. Despite his relative freedom, the Fourth Hokage was still a slave. Together, they vanished into the darkness, just as Danzō himself turned into the hallway.

When he passed, Minato burst from within a cell and slammed his heel into Danzō's face, so hard the man crashed into the far wall and slumped to the floor with a concussion. That lasted for all of three seconds, when he reappeared at the beginning of the hallway and turned to run away.

Kabuto, who had moved to cut him off, stepped from the shadows and sliced his right arm off with a chakra scalpel. Danzō grunted in pain and slid to the floor, his imminent demise a halting parody of Sarutobi's death.

The former Root agent picked up the arm. "I always knew you were a cunning bastard," Kabuto said fondly. "You can't use Izanagi while your arm is sealed off, so we just had to force you to use the _unsealed_ sharingan. With only one eye and no backups, what else do you have?"

"The tools of a shinobi are not limited to ninjutsu, Yakushi," Danzō muttered. He used his good arm to shove a kunai deep into Kabuto's belly. Danzō's run for it was only interrupted by the Hiraishin carrying Minato directly on top of him and halting his escape.

Kabuto pulled the kunai out and waved a hand over the wound. When it passed, the blood was gone and the skin mended.

"Dispose of him," he ordered, turning and walking away. "I have some explosives to plant. This division has outlived its usefulness, no sense leaving its corpses behind."

Grimly, Minato knelt down next to Danzō's dying form and readied one of his signature kunai. One swipe and Danzō would bleed out in front of him.

"Wait..."

Minato cocked his head. He had in him to resist for a little while.

"Allow me... to serve my village... One... last... time..."

Minato moved in closer, and Danzō explained his plan.

**.:.**

When the Hokage summoned, all answered the call. Ninja, civilian, it didn't matter. Their rule was absolute, and their power little contested. Anyone who dared to employ thousands of shinobi was worth bowing to for protection. The world was harsh, and the benefits of a hidden village were great. The Fire Shadow spoke, and so the civilians of Konoha dutifully trudged to the plaza beneath their leader's balcony.

Strangely, no shinobi attended. A few of the adults commented on it, but none really cared. The village was still in a state of turmoil after the Sand-Sound attack, and Sarutobi's guidance was long overdue.

To the crowd's shock, the man in the white robe was not Hiruzen but Shibi. The pride of the Aburame wore the Hokage's white kimono, which was covered nearly as much as his casual clothing. His spiky black hair and tassled sunglasses were unmistakable to most of the crowd, who recognized him as the man who single-handedly defended Konoha's northern gate from a direct attack by the Nibi's previous jinchūriki in the Third War.

"Greetings," he called to the crowd. Although he spoke quietly, his voice carried perfectly.

"You have all noticed that Konoha has faced some serious changes over the past two days," he went on. "This is something that has disrupted businesses and made life difficult for many of you, and we apologize. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, is dead. I have been chosen as his successor."

This was the most anyone had ever heard Shibi say at one time. Many had expected Kakashi to be named Hokage, and a few suspected it would go to Jiraiya. They prayed they were wrong, but for the Village's Shame to become its leader? What a travesty!

"From this day—"

A massive explosion rocketed out of a nearby building. Several panes of glass shattered from the force, leaving apartments windowless. The fireball cleared, and Shibi cleared his throat to continue.

"From this day onward, I swear to protect and guide the people of Konohagakure. I am the Fifth Hokage."

The crowd began to disperse, hushed whispers discussing Hiruzen's death. It was strange, because most of them could not remember a time when Sarutobi had _not_ been Hokage, bar Minato's two-year reign. The Second had appointed Sarutobi when he was thirteen, and he'd been a guiding hand ever since. Now he was dead, and without acknowledging it out loud every villager knew what had happened.

Orochimaru won.

With a blast-like impact, Might Guy landed on his back on the pavement nearby, looking as exuberant as he had at the beginning of his fight. He stood up, just as Tobirama Senju came careening into the plaza with his sword drawn.

"I had hoped to escape you," Guy said, frowning. "Your sensory abilities are as powerful as the legends claim. No matter, for a zombie such as you cannot hope to match the POWER OF MY YOUTH!"

Two things happened at once then. First, as the civilians cleared away from the battling shinobi, Guy charges. The second, faster than even Might Guy, Minato Namikaze appeared directly between the spandex-clad ninja and his target, holding up Danzō's body.

Guy's fist ripped through Danzō's chest and came within inches of reaching Tobirama's throat. In turn, Tobirama shoved his sword through Danzō's body, but Minato grabbed his predecessor's wrist and ensured that Danzō would have another minute to live before his exsanguination.

"Ura Shishō Fūinjutsu," Danzō choked out. Minato evaded the reverse sealing's blast radius with the Hiraishin, but Guy and Tobirama were not so lucky. A black sphere engulfed the two of them, and together they were sucked into Danzō's corpse, along with a hemisphere of earth and pavement.

It was a testament to how strange shinobi villages were that none of the passing civilians even stopped to gawk.

**.:.**

By nightfall, all of the remaining jōnin and tokubetsu jōnin had been shuffled into the Hokage tower, where the Fifth Hokage was waiting to address them. That was what tradition dictated, although none of them held any doubts as to the real reason for the meeting. It probably had something to do with the three tomoe on all of their necks.

Shibi took the podium. "My fellow Leaf shinobi," he said hoarsely, "It is with great sorrow that—"

"Enough of that, Lord Hokage!" boomed a voice so chillingly familiar, many of the jōnin tried to run away on instinct. Without much ado, Orochimaru appeared in a flicker of flames next to Shibi, who looked like he wanted to be anywhere on earth rather than there.

"Our first order of business concerns chūnin selections," Orochimaru addressed them. "Specifically, Neji Hyūga and Sasuke Uchiha. Both are now chūnin, and no doubt we would know if Naruto or any of the other genin are fit for the title had I not interrupted. I apologize for that.

"Our next item of business is dissent. Anybody who wants to kill me, feel free to do so now."

There was no movement for a few seconds. Then, cries of "Tsūga!" and "Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!" rang out, as a few dozen Hyūga and Inuzuka leapt forward with murderous intent. A few feet out from the man himself their curse seals flared with green light and they fell to the floor, unconscious.

"No takers?" Orochimaru asked rhetorically. "Now, after Minato finishes in ANBU, I'll get back to preparing Heaven Seals, but for now I'll be answering some questions you might have. Questions like 'can I leave Konoha?', or 'what will happen, now that I've been enslaved by a rogue ninja?' Fortunately, I am no longer a rogue ninja, if that helps ease any doubts you may have. Konoha is now entering a self-imposed quarantine until our 'dissident problem' has been solved. For the most part, business as usual!"

He stared back at a room full of helpless, pissed-off shinobi. "Also, you will be keeping your genin in line. I don't have the resources to give every ninja in Konoha the Anko treatment, so you'll be helping me along."

"Oh yeah?" someone shouted. "_Make_ us!"

Orochimaru considered.

"If you insist," he said bemusedly. "Ten no Juin!"

* * *

**Was that too fast?**


	16. Chiyo's Art

**Chapter 16: Chiyo's Art**

* * *

Hayate, proctor of the third exam, knew what was happening the instant the Leviathan poked its first head out from beneath the arena floor. His girlfriend was ANBU, and things trickled down to him. Things like disquiet in Suna and a sudden lack of intelligence on Orochimaru. In an instant he was running, knowing that the alarm had been raised, and looking for a defensible place.

He found it in the apartment he shared with Yūgao, with one side built flat against the stone of the Hokage Monument and the other facing outwards. He found her there already, setting traps on the walkway leading inside. His sweetheart gave a perfunctory greeting, but they worked in unbroken silence as Hayate picked up some tools and started installing the generic-looking tripwire holders the ANBU were so fond of.

Yūgao's head perked up at a sound Hayate couldn't quite hear.

"What is it?"

"They have someone using the Hiraishin technique," she said softly. "ANBU was taken out in about six minutes. Whoever it is, they're coming this way."

Hayate's blood ran cold. "Why were all of the assassins in the village?" he asked, coughing.

"The Hokage recalled most of us before the exam. Something about providing security." Yūgao snorted. "We were toast. Too many of us were traitors. I barely escaped with my life."

Hayate coughed again, sagging against the wall as his vision grew faint. Yūgao, concerned, picked him up and carried him inside. Glancing around the apartment, she grabbed a bottle of painkillers that Hayate had a prescription for and a length of rope.

"Wha–" _cough_ "What're y-you do–" _cough_ "–doing?" Hayate wheezed, looking alarmed at the prospect of being left out of the coming battle.

"You're too sick to fight, dear," Yūgao informed him. "I'm sorry, but you're just going to have to sit this one out."

"Wh– No!" he cried, trying to wiggle out of her grasp. Almost playfully, Yūgao bound his legs together and tied his wrists behind his back. Then, she dumped him in the closet.

"Here's the medicine if you need it," she said, balancing the lidless bottle on his chest. "I'll come back for you as soon as we take out the ninja using the Hiraishin."

She shut the door and left. Hayate seethed in the dark, his brooding only punctuated by the rattling coughs that knocked the pill bottle from his chest.

**.:.**

Kabuto left the day after Orochimaru's address. He moved in the general direction of Tanzaku Quarters, the gambling capital of Fire Country, and travelled underground for three days. It was pathetically easy to track Tsunade's progress around the city, after recruiting a few locals with generous donations of ryō. Their search parameters were 'legendary sucker'.

Less than twelve hours later, he was walking into a casino at the far edge of town, where the lights were brightest in the fading daylight. As he entered, he almost immediately ran into a dark-haired woman jogging through the crowd. She bounced off him and looked away, flustered.

"My, you're in a hurry," he said.

"I should have watched where I was going," she apologized. "Have you seen a pig running around here?"

Kabuto's smile grew. "A pig? One just passed by me a moment ago."

"Can you take me to him?"

Kabuto led her from the entrance to the salad bar, where a tiny porcine figure was unsuccessfully attempting to jump up to the food.

"Tonton!" the woman exclaimed, scooping the errant pig into her arms. She turned back to him, smiling gratefully.

"Thanks, mister..."

"Yakushi. Kabuto Yakushi." He didn't feel the need to use a pseudonym. He was there on official business, best to make a good impression.

"Shizune Katō," she introduced herself. Then she was gone, moving with true shinobi speed back to her master's side. Kabuto followed, sticking to the shadows in the brightly-coloured casino. As it happened, getting close to Tsunade was next to impossible for the average man because the Legendary Sucker was practically free money. As she drifted from roulette to dice to poker, a crowd followed in the hopes of playing with her. Now it was blackjack.

"Hit me," Tsunade said, glancing at her cards. A four, a two and a ten. The dealer flipped over an eight, pushing her total to twenty-two. Growling, she threw her hand on the table and stalked off, leaving her money behind.

The crowd thinned enough for him to get at her when she chanced upon a slot machine. Shizune sat on a nearby chair and watched tiredly as Tsunade fed the one-armed bandit coin after coin. Kabuto waited until she was between spins before approaching.

"Your former teammate sends his regards," he told her. Tsunade stiffened.

"You're one of Jiraiya's spies?" She snorted. "Or maybe you're one of his bastards. Same hair colour, right?"

"Not _that_ teammate," he said lightly.

Tsunade watched the rolling wheels as they slid past a payout, leaving her with nothing. "What does Orochimaru want with me?" she asked quietly.

"Your services as a medic," Kabuto answered smoothly. "There is a man in our organization who is dying of a disease I cannot identify or treat, and as troubling as that is we feel that gaps in my study should be circumvented at our earliest convenience. That is, we need you to serve as a physician to Kimimaro."

"Kimimaro," Tsunade said, rolling the name around in her mouth. "Funny... I've never heard of him. Is he one of those insufferable shinobi branded with your master's juinjutsu?"

Kabuto suppressed a laugh. Oh, if she could see Konoha now...

"That he is, my lady," he said politely. "And I assure you that we will compensate you well for your work."

"What can you offer her?" Shizune said frostily. "Master has power, wealth and indefinite leave from the Third Hokage."

"Well, the Third Hokage is dead," Kabuto said casually. "In any case, you'll have to come back to get that license renewed, although Lord Aburame may not be as sympathetic to your argument as your old sensei. But even beyond that, Lord Orochimaru is generous. He can give you... _this_."

Kabuto held up two things in his left hand: a severed finger and a vial of blood. The severed finger had been pried from a battlefield long ago, and the blood wiped from a kunai by Orochimaru himself almost a lifetime before, both in preparation for this day. Tsunade had no way of identifying either of them, but recognition flared in her amber eyes.

"Are... are those what I think they are?" she said haltingly, not daring to believe what Orochimaru offered her.

"They are," the other medic confirmed. "Heal Kimimaro Kaguya, and Lord Orochimaru will give you back what you once had. All we need is your healing expertise and these are yours."

"Lady Tsunade?" Shizune demanded, her hand latching onto Tsunade's collar. "What is he saying? What are... You can't seriously be considering this, can you?"

"Tell me one thing, Yakushi," Tsunade said dangerously. "How did Sarutobi die?"

"Kusanagi's edge," Kabuto answered shamelessly. "Is that a yes?"

In response, Tsunade kicked him in the chest. Kabuto smashed backwards through two craps tables and another row of slot machines, sliding to a stop by a wall. He stood up, green chakra billowing around the point of impact as he worked to repair his ribs. Despite the pain crashing through his body, Kabuto was pleased. Tsunade Senju was notoriously touchy, but the carrot the snake sannin dangled in front of her was too much for her to resist.

She stood up, grass-coloured haori emblazoned with 'Gamble' billowing behind her. Civilians were edging away from the potential fight nervously, though the lure of the casino was too powerful for them to flee entirely.

"Shizune!" Tsunade barked. Her apprentice jumped to attention, following behind Tsunade with Tonton squalling in her arms.

She stopped next to Kabuto and forcefully pulled him to his feet, putting some of her famed strength into the grip.

"Let's go," she muttered.

Success.

**.:.**

Naruto was beginning to miss sunlight. It was borderline painful to wake up to the half-light of the workshop's lamps, and Chiyo's frequent absences were dull. He filled the boredom by tinkering with the available puppets, trying out new creations. A short lesson on reticulated joints led to his creation of a snake puppet. It moved somewhat like a real snake, though his whimsical colour scheme of bright orange with pink highlights was a tad hard on the eye.

He eyed the selection of blades Chiyo availed herself of, wondering if he could give it fangs. There were easily hundreds of knives, swords, daggers, kunai and more lying around the workshop, all without hilts. Puppeteers needed to make their toys dangerous, and that meant things that were often impractical or impossible for humans to use. Blades that jutted out of the wrist, fire-proof metal that was too brittle for anything but novel anti-ninjutsu defence, poison so deadly it could kill if inhaled, all of these were at Naruto's disposal.

It was a shame he couldn't _use_ his new snake puppet. That required chakra threads, which meant chakra, something he didn't have much of right then. So he opened a few drawers on the tables until he came to one marked 'Karambit'. The small knives inside looked like they were meant to be held in a closed fist, but the tips were wickedly sharp, and all of them fang-shaped. Gleefully, Naruto snatched two of them and began the slow process of filing them down to about half their original size.

He wondered what kind of poison to use, and whether the fangs should be added in such a way that they broke off in a target's skin. The answer to the first question, as it turned out, was curare, and the answer to the second was yes.

Chiyo shuffled into the workshop, rubbing her eyes as she worked up the nerve to deal with Naruto. Perhaps she could have delegated the task of occupying him to someone else, but only she commanded the respect needed for the task.

"Hey, granny," Naruto called. He was hunched over that cobbled-together piece of wood he called a puppet, working arduously to give it... fangs?

"My word, I've never had a use for those!" Chiyo chuckled. "A man much older than I gave them to me and my brother when we were young, and I've simply kept them out of nostalgia. You never cease to surprise me, Naruto."

"This is Shūtai," Naruto said, flipping the snake over on its back. The belly now sported the kanji for 'Abomination' in pink ink.

_'Abomination indeed,'_ Chiyo thought, cringing inwardly at the choice of colour.

"Naruto, this puppet won't work," she explained. "You've made it well, but it won't work in the hands of a puppeteer. The angles of movement are too restricted."

"Oh yeah?" Naruto challenged. He picked up the snake and thrust it at her. Chiyo stared at it, and then accepted his challenge. She wrapped five chakra threads around the puppet's length, trapping and controlling its six-foot-long body. She tried to make it move along the ground, but Shūtai's gears ground painfully every time she moved her hand. With a little effort she lifted the puppet from the ground and tried again, but it still stubbornly refused to function.

"No, no, no!" Naruto groaned, "you're doing it wrong. You need to make it... snake-like. It's a snake thingie, you gotta move it in a snake... snake way. Grrr, just lemme do it!"

Naruto's frustration reminded her of another puppeteer, one whose first creations were odder than she'd expected. Frustrated by her luck in choosing apprentices, Chiyo motioned him forwards and seized his wrist.

"I can release some of the pressure the seal puts on your chakra system," she explained, inspecting the swirl printed there. "You should have enough chakra for the usual ten threads, but that might be too much. Stop if you start feeling dizzy, I don't want to have to pick you up."

She picked up a sponge and wiped a speck of ink from the seal. Chiyo briefly instructed Naruto in the basics of creating chakra threads, which he was grateful didn't require any great degree of chakra control. Slowly, beads of sweat popping up on his forehead, Naruto forced the glowing blue substance through the tenketsu on his fingertips. Slowly, they wrapped around Shūtai's body and reached into the joints.

"See, you gotta move it like _this_!"

Amazingly, it moved. The snake coiled around itself and raised its head, baring metal fangs dripping with clear liquid. Chiyo decided to put a lock on her poison cabinet. Naruto maneuvred the orange-and-pink puppet across the floor, then to himself, and then up his leg. Rather than straight motions, the snake's body jerked back and forth, using friction to propel itself forward instead of the puppeteer's strength.

Well, she could see why he did it. She'd neglected to mention that aspect of puppeteering, so it was logical that he'd find an alternative.

Naruto found the snake around his own torso and smiled.

"See?" he said.

Chiyo nodded thoughtfully. "I think you're ready to use Daughter-In-Law," she said. "You improvise well, but now that you understand the tool, it's time to learn how to use it. The Art of the Puppet Master is ancient, almost as old as ninjutsu itself. In recent times, it became popular as a fighting technique throughout Suna. I can teach you how to fight by proxy, how to strike from the shadows and wade through war unharmed. With enough skill, a puppet master can fight with the strength of ten."

She sighed. "I suppose I should warn you that this path holds risks. Puppeteers tend to neglect taijutsu and other aspects of the ninja lifestyle. It takes a keen eye and sparks of brilliance to avoid the traps a typical ninja uses to kill a puppeteer opponent. Your weapons are complicated and easier to break than a kunai or a shuriken, and much less replaceable."

Clearly he was set on learning puppetry: Naruto was more attentive than she'd ever seen him before. Chiyo wondered if anyone had ever offered to teach him voluntarily. Probably not.

"The last puppeteer I taught was a traitor and a murderous sociopath," Chiyo told him sternly. "Use this skill as you would any other: in service to the Hokage."

She felt horrible for lying to him, but it was more important that he have the moral compass necessary for a ninja so that, if and when he became a free agent, he didn't turn out like her grandson.

"I promise," Naruto said solemnly.

Son levitated away from the table and assumed a figting stance in front of Naruto.

"Good..." Chiyo said. "Now defend yourself!"

Naruto lunged for Daughter-In-Law, Son pulled a length of spiked chain from his sleeve, and the battle was on.

* * *

**_Now_ he learns puppetry. Tsunade's reward is precisely what you'd expect it to be, and yes, she does believe Orochimaru can do it. She remembers him as a mad genius, after all.**


End file.
